Vol. 8, Issue 1, Part B (2026)

Black pepper (Piper nigrum L.) poetically referred as King of Spices, is an important spice crop of Western Ghats tracts. Farmers of this area have two dimensional challenges in production of Black pepper (production and post harvesting process). Black pepper, being a high demand export-oriented spice crop need appropriate post harvesting processing and handling interventions to improve quality, appearance and shelf-life of the end product. Currently market demands deep black, bold berries for export purpose. Different post-harvest techniques have its own influence on these quality attributes. Among the post-harvest interventions blanching and procedure of drying has significant influence on quality of end product. Hence, an observational study was taken up at Spices Board, Regional Station, ICRI, Sakleshpur during 2023 to assess the influence of different post-harvest interventions on quality attributes of black pepper berries. Five different post-harvest practices were evaluated with four replications. Treatments consisting of open sun drying on mat (T₁), Sun drying with covering transparent polythene sheet (solarization -T_2), Sun drying with covering non-transparent polythene sheet (T₃), Blanching deconned berries in hot water for 2 mins and open sun drying (T₄) Blanching deconned berries in hot water for 5 mins and open sun drying (T₅). Quicker drying was observed where berries were blanched and open sun dried (T₄ & T₅18h 30min), closely followed by treatments where berries open sun dried (T₁) (19.20h). Relatively highest drying time was observed where berries were covered with transparent and non-transparentpolythene sheet (22 h). Similarly, highest recover percentage was observed in treatments where solarization was adopted (T₂ & T₃ 40.08 & 41.01% respectively) and lowest recovery percentage was observed in treatment where berries were blanched and sun dried (T₄&T₅ 38.09 and 38.02%respectively). Deep black coloured berries were observed in treatments where solarization was adopted (T₂& T₃). On the contrary, open sun-dried berries had brownish black shade after completion of drying. Hence it can be concluded that initial solarization with polythene cover for 5-6 hours followed by open sun drying helps in achieving better post-harvest quality attributes deep black berry colour in black pepper as compared to regular practice of open sun drying.