The successful export of fruits and vegetables by sea would provide a great boost to the horticulture industry. It would provide access to large markets and the sorts of volumes that can be secured using sea freight are substantially more than can be serviced by air freight.

Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) of fresh horticultural produce is an attractive and simple concept. It uses the gases produced and consumed during the respiration of fresh produce, that is carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen O2 respectively, to produce a favorable atmosphere in a specially designed polymeric film package. If the package has the correct permeability to CO2 and O2, a unique atmosphere for that product is created, usually enriched in CO2 and reduced in O2. This favorable atmosphere slows the metabolic activity of the produce to a very low level, and thus MAP enables the storage of highly perishable produce or prolonged periods.

"Three different types of bags were involved in this evaluation of MAP trial for shipping period up to 19 days followed by shipping period up to 3 days at 15 C or 6-8 C,"Dr.Youssef noted. These bags include imported MAP plastic bags and another imported one used for shipping onion by sea as well as bags used locally. The CO2 and ethylene concentrations were determined at specific periods before opening the MAP bag. The following observations were summarized by the team:

1.Samples were taken randomly from each box (average of 1 kg). The sample was collected from different locations (upper, middle and bottom of the carton box) each time.

2.Samples were evaluated against its detect according to the following arrangements: decay followed by browning, bushing and wilting.

3.Green beans kept for 13 days followed by 3 days shelf life at 15 C were in good condition. When kept for 17 days followed by 3 days shelf life at 6-8 C or for 1 day shelf life at 15 C, the green beans were also good. Keeping green beans for 19 days was not ok.

4.Comparing the local polyethylene bag with the imported one revealed similar results where both had CO2 more than 8% during the cold storage.

5.Browning appeared on green beans during the shelf life as chilling injury, where chilling injury always appears after warming up the fruits. Sometimes with prolonged storage, the chilling injury appears on the fruit during the cold storage.

6.The fungus responsible for most green beans decay during the MAP trial was Botrytis and for lower percentages was Scelrotinia. These fungi should be controlled at the field during the growing season.

7.Sand particles appeared on the pods especially in the small bag packaging. Sands injure the pods increasing the water loss, chilling injury and decay incidence. Contamination with sand was expected to be caused by placing the field boxes on the soil, then placing them above each other resulting of dropping sands on pods.

8.Palletizing in one of the packinghouses is very good, where the pallet dimension is 100cm x 120 cm. Box dimensions are 30cm x 40 cm. So, one layer of boxes in the pallet takes one row of 4 boxes x 30cm, and two other rows of 3 boxes each (3 boxes x 40cm). They remove the box in the middle from all layers during staking the pallet. The empty area allows the aeration inside the pallet, keeping the quality of the green beans and reducing the decay during shipping for export.