Determination of pistacho harvest and post-harvest problems and solution suggestions

The new methods in post-harvest provide that minimum deterioration of the crop, reduction of product losses, offering quality products to the consumer, and increase the amount of high nutritive and cheap products. The impact of post-harvest processing on crop losses, product quality and market value of horticultural crops is quite significant. One of the problems in pistachio growing is harvest and post-harvest applications. Significant delays are experienced at harvest time, which causes fruit quality loss. Success in growing finds value with the quality of the product and showily presenting it to the consumer. Timely harvest, post-harvest applications and consumer preferences are important. In this study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 206 farmers selected by proportional sampling method. Harvest and post-harvest problems faced by farmers in pistachio production were determined and suggestions were developed to reduce these problems. Therefore, farmers' views on harvest and post-harvest problems are very important. According to the findings, 93.69% of the farmers harvest by hand and 97.09% of the farmers employed labour for harvesting. However, it was determined that 47.09% of the farmers had difficulty in employing labour for the harvest. Regarding the harvest, the most worrying issue for the farmers is the decrease in sales prices. Other concerns are the inability to sell on time, having a sales problem in the domestic market due to export problems, difficulties in finding seasonal labour and finding buyers.