Pre and Post-harvest Practices, Processing and Value Addition of Custard Apple

Custard apple is a delicious and commercially important fruit with pleasant flavor, mild aroma, sweet taste, good nutritional and medicinal values. However, the pre-harvest, post-harvest and processing and value addition practices have not been sufficiently developed. The pre-harvest practices like mulching, irrigation nutrition supplement and bio-fertilizers application play an important role on the development and shelf-life of fruits. The fruit has a short self-life due to high respiration and ethylene production. The temperature, type of packaging and chemical application have effect on storage life, however very low temperature storage is not recommended due to chilling injury. The shelf-life of custard apple fruit can be enhanced upto 12 days in modified atmosphere storage at 10°C, whereas pulp can be stored for six months with potassium meta-bisulphite. A number of value added products like ready-to-serve beverages, fermented beverage, ice cream, squash, and toffee can be prepared to exploit the nutritional potential and adding a new flavor/taste in the market. This review attempts to outline some of the important findings on pre-harvest practices, post-harvest, processing value addition and storage of this fruits.