<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Devices which are used to determine firmness of non-destructive nature do not penetrate the skin or damage the underlying flesh of the fruit and do provide real-time results, avoid raw biomass loss and allow the testing of every individual fruit and repeated testing of the same fruit, thus providing many advantages for researchers and the industry alike. Contrarily, destructive methods puncture the fruit and thus only a subsample, selected to represent all fruit, can be tested. In addition, different operators can generate quite different values for the same fruit using a hand-held penetrometer. Hass avocado from two commercial orchards was collected, and fruit firmness was measured at harvest, during two storage conditions controlled atmosphere (CA) and regular air (RA), during shelf-life and at the ready-to-eat stage using both destructive (Fruit Pressure Tester, mod. FT327, Wagner Instruments, Greenwich, USA) and non-destructive devices (Model TA.XT plusC, Stable Micro Systems Ltd, England). Then, the mathematical relationship between these two devices was assessed using Spearman Correlation coefficient (rho) and <italic>p</italic>-values adjusted by Benjamini-Hochberg and Bonferroni procedures. Thus, 3,200 fruits were evaluated during two harvests and two subsequent seasons. A moderate and positive association between destructive and non-destructive devices was found (rho coefficient ranging from 0.41 to 0.51). The variance explained by the regression models ranged from 0.53 to 0.63; all of them were significant with good accuracies (i.e., 0.79; 0.78; 0.73; 0.76). The results prompt us to conclude that a non-destructive texture analyser device can be used to accurately predict firmness measured by a penetrometer in Hass avocado fruit and contribute to avoiding fruit discards.</p>
</abstract>

Devices which are used to determine firmness of non-destructive nature do not penetrate the skin or damage the underlying flesh of the fruit and do provide real-time results, avoid raw biomass loss and allow the testing of every individual fruit and repeated testing of the same fruit, thus providing many advantages for researchers and the industry alike. Contrarily, destructive methods puncture the fruit and thus only a subsample, selected to represent all fruit, can be tested. In addition, different operators can generate quite different values for the same fruit using a hand-held penetrometer. Hass avocado from two commercial orchards was collected, and fruit firmness was measured at harvest, during two storage conditions controlled atmosphere (CA) and regular air (RA), during shelf-life and at the ready-to-eat stage using both destructive (Fruit Pressure Tester, mod. FT327, Wagner Instruments, Greenwich, USA) and non-destructive devices (Model TA.XT plusC, Stable Micro Systems Ltd, England). Then, the mathematical relationship between these two devices was assessed using Spearman Correlation coefficient (rho) and p-values adjusted by Benjamini-Hochberg and Bonferroni procedures. Thus, 3,200 fruits were evaluated during two harvests and two subsequent seasons. A moderate and positive association between destructive and non-destructive devices was found (rho coefficient ranging from 0.41 to 0.51). The variance explained by the regression models ranged from 0.53 to 0.63; all of them were significant with good accuracies (i.e., 0.79; 0.78; 0.73; 0.76). The results prompt us to conclude that a non-destructive texture analyser device can be used to accurately predict firmness measured by a penetrometer in Hass avocado fruit and contribute to avoiding fruit discards.

Mathematical modelling of Hass avocado firmness by using destructive and non-destructive devices at different maturity stages and under two storage conditions

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso

Escuela de Agronomia, Department of Postharvest and Industrialization

Folia Horticulturae

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Devices which are used to determine firmness of non-destructive nature do not penetrate the skin or damage the underlying flesh of the fruit and do provide...

Mathematical modelling of Hass avocado firmness by using destructive and non-destructive devices at different maturity stages and under two storage conditions

Article Category: Short Communication

Published Online: Aug 05, 2022

Page range: 139 - 150

Received: Mar 01, 2022

Accepted: Jun 14, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fhort-2022-0011

Keywords
destructive fruit firmness, mathematical modelling, non-destructive device, relationships

© 2022 Virgilio Gavicho Uarrota et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mathematical modelling of Hass avocado firmness by using destructive and non-destructive devices at different maturity stages and under two storage conditions

Article Category: Short Communication

Published Online: Aug 05, 2022

Page range: 139 - 150

Received: Mar 01, 2022

Accepted: Jun 14, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fhort-2022-0011

Keywordsdestructive fruit firmness, mathematical modelling, non-destructive device, relationships

© 2022 Virgilio Gavicho Uarrota et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
destructive fruit firmness, mathematical modelling, non-destructive device, relationships