Pre-harvest bunch bagging as an eco-safe intervention for premium quality litchi production: Insights from a multi-location study in India

SUNIL KUMAR^1*Evening Stone Marboh²Sushil Kumar Purbey³Mahesh Kumar Dhakar⁴Chandan Suravi Maiti⁵Ganeshi Lal Sharma⁶Vikas Kumar Sharma⁷Ashok Kumar Singh⁸Satish Chand⁸Samik Sengupta⁹Kalyan Chakraborti¹⁰Sumanjit Kaur¹¹Nav Prem Singh¹¹SANDEEP SINGH¹¹Prakash Patil^12*S Priya Devi¹²Rohit Kumar¹³Ashok Dhakad¹³Ipsita Samal¹³Bhagya Vijayan¹³Bikash Das¹³

• ¹National Research Centre on Litchi (ICAR), Muzaffarpur, India
• ²ICAR - Central Citrus Research Institute, Nagpur, India
• ³ICAR - Mahatma Gandhi Integrated Farming Research Institute, Motihari, India
• ⁴Farming System Research Centre for Hill and Plateau Region, Ranchi, India
• ⁵Nagaland University, Lumami, India
• ⁶Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur, India
• ⁷Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture & Forestry, Nauni, India
• ⁸Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture & Technology, Pantnagar, India
• ⁹Bihar Agricultural University, Sabour, India
• ¹⁰Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Nadia, India
• ¹¹Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, India
• ¹²ICAR - Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru, India
• ¹³ICAR - National Research Centre on Litchi, Muzaffarpur, India

Pre-harvest fruit bagging is increasingly recognized as an eco-safe strategy to enhance fruit quality and mitigate biotic and abiotic stresses in high-value horticultural crops. However, its performance in litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) across contrasting agro-climatic environments remains inadequately documented. This multi-location study evaluated the effects of bagging material and timing on fruit damage, yield, and quality of litchi across nine major litchi-growing regions of India over four consecutive seasons (2020–2023). Seven treatments, including white and pink non-woven polypropylene bags applied at 15, 25, and 30 days after fruit set, along with an unbagged control, were tested using a factorial randomized block design. Bagging significantly reduced fruit cracking, sunburn, and borer infestation across locations, with strong location × treatment interactions (P ≤ 0.05). Compared with unbagged fruit, bagging lowered cracking and sunburn to ≤4–6% and ≤5–8%, respectively, while borer infestation remained below 3% in most environments. Yield increased by 10–35% depending on location, with the greatest gains observed when bagging was applied 25–30 days after fruit set. Bagged fruits also exhibited higher fruit weight, total soluble solids, and anthocyanin content, while maintaining desirable acidity levels. Hierarchical clustering and principal component analysis clearly separated bagging treatments from the unbagged control, associating bagging with higher yield and quality traits as well as reduced damage incidence. Overall, pre-harvest bagging emerged as a robust, location-resilient, and sustainable practice for improving litchi productivity and marketable quality.