Fruit dry matter concentration: a new quality metric for apples

Abstract

Fruit DMC can therefore be measured before or at harvest, and be used to predict the sensory potential for the fruit after storage.

Linear relations between apple traits

“…Knee and Smith (1989) evaluated 'Cox' apples and found that sugar content, malate and firmness after storage were closely correlated to those observed during harvest, with continuous decreasing acidity and increasing fruit sweetness. Palmer et al (2010) found a positive correlation between fruit dry weight and TSS in 'Royal Gala' and 'Scifresh' apples evaluated at harvest and after 6 and 12 weeks of storage, with values close to the present ones for MA and TSS correlations (Table 1). These authors also found a positive low correlation between dry weight and fruit firmness.…”

“…The evaluation of morphological/productive traits of apples before and during harvest can contribute to achieve fruits with higher commercial quality, especially regarding flesh firmness, titratable acidity, total soluble solids and juice content (Palmer et al 2010). Thus, studies of linear relations between apple traits can contribute to the indirect evaluation of harvesting time, quality and metabolic activity, allowing external rather than destructive evaluations of the fruits.…”

“…To this end, several morphological and production traits of 3 apple cultivars, 'Gala', 'Braeburn' and 'Fuji', were evaluated and used to define maturity and quality after storage (Plotto et al 1995). Palmer et al (2010) evaluated the 'Royal Gala' and 'Scifresh' cultivars to determine dry matter concentration before or at the harvest time, as a potential sensory indicator of stored fruits, to predict total soluble solids content and firmness.…”

Analysis of the dynamic mechanical properties of apple tissue and relationships with the intracellular water status, gas distribution, histological properties and chemical composition

“…In particular, a correlation between SSC and Young's modulus was anticipated as firmness was correlated with dry matter content (Palmer et al, 2010) and SSC represents the major part of dry matter. The lack of correlation observed may be the result of the small variation range compared to standard deviations in the fruit studied.…”

Manipulation of fruit dry matter accumulation and fruit size in ‘Scifresh’ apple through alteration of the carbon supply, and its relationship with apoplastic sugar composition

“…F ruit dry matter concentration (DMC) has recently been suggested as a key metric of fruit quality in apple at harvest (Palmer et al, 2010). The utility of this metric was evident in its ability not only to predict fruit soluble solids concentrations (SSC) after cool storage, but also to predict consumer liking.…”