Peru develops non-toxic natural coating to protect avocados from anthrax

Recently, a natural coating developed by a research team from the University of San Ignacio del Loyola in Peru for the preservation of avocados after harvest won an award at the Korea International Women's Invention Expo (KIWIE). One of the winners, Luis Olivera said that this invention mainly hopes to solve the problem of post-harvest preservation of Hass avocados in the Peruvian agricultural sector. After the avocados are harvested, they are usually poorly managed or the temperature is too high during transportation from the farm to the processing plant, which makes them susceptible to a fungal infection, which in turn causes avocado anthrax. This causes the fruit to deteriorate and causes losses to farmers and exporters. Peru not only grows avocados, but also grows a large number of citrus. So the R&D team started with citrus and extracted essential oils from the discarded peels used to produce concentrated citrus juice as the main active ingredient to inhibit fungal growth. ...