Biostimulants Improve Yield and Quality in Preharvest without Impinging on the Postharvest Quality of Hass Avocado and Mango Fruit: Evaluation under Organic and Traditional Systems

Abstract

The fruit agribusiness sector is one of the most dynamic in Colombia. Within this sector, avocado and mango are of great importance, both in terms of area planted and volume exported. Increasing the productivity, quality, and postharvest life of these fruits is a priority, due to the high losses that occur in the preharvest and postharvest stages. One current alternative to achieve this are biostimulants, which have the potential to improve the productivity and quality of fruit. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of the preharvest application of two biostimulants on the yield and quality of avocados and mangos. The study was carried out in production systems for cv. Hass avocado (traditional and organic) and cv. Keitt mango (traditional). In each system, two treatments were evaluated: conventional and conventional + biostimulant. Under field conditions, yield and quality variables such as weight, number of fruits, visual appearance, and size were determined. In postharvest, the fruits obtained from preharvest treatments were subjected to two storage conditions (6 and 20 °C) during the ripening process. Postharvest quality variables such as respiration, ethylene rates, weight loss, color index, firmness, total soluble solids, and titratable acidity were evaluated. The results indicated that the use of biostimulants caused a significant increase (p ≤ 0.05) in the yield, number of fruits, and preharvest quality parameters of size and weight, without negatively affecting the postharvest quality of the fruits. The biostimulant increases the total weight of fruits in organic and conventional avocado by ~55 and 25%, respectively, while in mango, this figure increased by ~23%. Hence, biostimulants can be utilized to increase the productivity of fruit trees.