Author(s): Negasa Fufa* and Gudisa Hailu
The survey was conducted from 2018 to 2019 with the aim of isolation and identifying important post-harvest diseases of mango fruits and estimating postharvest losses due to associated diseases. The physical loss measurements were made during harvesting, packaging, transporting and storage. Questioners were prepared to collect postharvest loss data on important factors of postharvest losses during storage or handling. The collected data was organized into graphs, charts and figures using statistical software using SPSS (version 26.0), excel and the difference between mean percentage incidence and frequency was separated by the Least Significant Difference (LSD). The survey results indicated that mango white scales are one of the most important insect pests that affect mango and it causes a loss of 69% by damaging the leaves and fruit. Similarly, there are physical losses: 7.5% due to mechanical damage/bruising, 15% if lately harvested, 2.5% from poor packaging, 1.5% from lack of good transportation, 13.5% from poor storage methods, 10% from market losses and 75% from Colletotrichum (anthracnose) disease, respectively. A high mean percentage of incidence and frequency of 85.33% and 55.44% of Colletotrichum species were observed in the samples collected from West Wollega. This was because of high humidity, rainfall, and high natural forest in the area, which created a conducive environment for the development of the disease and inoculum from the previous. From this study, it was concluded that although many studies are done on the management of mango white scales, there is still a bottleneck in the production and productivity of mango fruits in the area through anthracnose disease transmission. Most of the people in the surveyed areas used the diseased mango fruits for consumption, which causes health problems and this requires further study on the health effects of the diseases.
