This work offers comprehensive, current coverage of preharvest and postharvest handling and production of fruits grown in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world. It discusses over 60 major and minor crops, and details developments in fruit handling and disease control, storage practices, packaging for fruit protection, sizing equipment, conveyors, package fillers, refrigeration methods and more.

The present world population of about five billion and its projected growth cre- ate enonnous pressures and demands for food and industrial raw materials. It is to crop plants, one of our precious few renewable resources, that we must look to meet most of these needs. Globally, about 88% of our caloric requirements and 90% of our protein ultimately derive from plant sources-ample evidence of their importance to humankind. Our survival will therefore continue to de- pend on the world's largest and certainly most important industry: agriculture. Yet in spite of our long history of domestication...