ABSTRACT
Poor post-harvest storage can lead to significant amounts of waste, with storage loss, excluding grading loss and packing losses, estimated at 3-5% for the UK (Pritchard et al., 2012). Premature sprouting and disease/rotting were identified as the main causes of waste (Terry et al., 2011; Pritchard et al., 2012). The key issues in storage management and control of this wastage are to have a clear understanding of:
• The quality of the crop entering the store • The capability to dry and cool the crop • The effect of the environment outside the store • The effect of the environment inside the store • The costs of operating the store • The impact of these issues on crop quality
The challenge for the store manager is to be able to assimilate all of this information, prioritise it and manage the systems to achieve the desired outcome which should always be to deliver crop from the store to the specification the customer requires.
