Potential Application of Citrus Valencia Essential Oil (EO) on Three Mango Varieties and It Effects on the Quality Attributes of the Fruits

In today’s world, synthetic preservatives, pesticides, fungicides, etc., misused are a call for concern, especially in the current health-conscious generation, whose consciousness to an extent have been due to the outbreak of many unknown and doubtful diseases. As such consumers' demands for as natural as possible or organic food have pushed food scientists, processors, preservatory, etc. to look for alternative natural sources especially plant botanicals. This study, therefore, extracted essential oil (EO) from orange peels (waste) of citrus Valencia fruit by a mechanical cold-press method. The essential oil was used for the treatment of three varieties of mango fruits (Broken, John, and Julie) and which were stored at room temperature. The fruits were then sampled and analyzed for quality attributes at four days intervals, from which the result of the control and treated mango fruits showed that citrus EO could extend the shelf-life of mango fruit by retaining most of the organoleptic properties in the unripped form. And in which 0.3 and 0.4 percent of the EO in carrier oil happens to show the best quality retention, a recommended percentage is used for further findings. However, it should be noted that the treated mango fruits did not ripen and that the immediate greenish outside of the peels due to the acidic nature of the extracted oil was also soft, but not the pulp of the fruits.