Study of Tangerine Fruit Sagging in Wholesale Packages during Land Transport

Abstract

This research was to study sagging of tangerine fruits packed in plastic basket during land transport. Methodology comprised i) random sampling of 27 tangerine baskets placing on 3 layers of the whole fruit stack layer no.1-the lower, layer no.3- the middle, layer no.5 - the higher] g baskets per layer (3 baskets adjacent to driver cab, 3 baskets at the middle of truck and 3 baskets at the rear end). There were totally 6 layers of tangerine basket. ii) measurement of average height of tangerine fruit in baskets before truck leaving wholesale market and when arriving the remote retail market, physical characteris- tics the tangerine-number of fruits per basket, basket size. Results showed tangerine of lower and the middle levels sagged equally (5%). That of the higher level sagged less (2.5%). Tangerine no.1 which was placed at the rear end sagged 9.4, 7:6 and 4.9% for the lower, the middle and the higher levels respectively, averagely 7.3%. There was tendency indicating fruit sagging increased when packing density was small; on the otherhand, tangerine basket that was packed more tightly showed less sagging.