FIRMNESS OF MANGOES (MANGIFERA INDICA L.) MEASURED ACOUSTICALLY, MECHANICALLY AND MANUALLY

J.J. Polderdijk, R.M. Kho, A.P.M. de Kruif, Y. Carmi
ATO-DLO is developing and implementing a Decision Support System for planning storage and ripening treatments of imported mango. This project is carried out by order of a leading Dutch importer of tropical fruits named FTK.

In order to make the system applicable in practice the ripening behaviour of mangoes under several kinds of defined conditions must be measurable and predictable. Therefore available methods to measure important quality aspects are studied during the project.

One of the most significant quality aspects of mango for consumers is firmness as it represents ripeness. In order to select the best applicable method for measuring firmness of mango in practice, three methods were compared. The first method was a non-destructive acoustic firmness measurement with a prototype Firmalon for mango, the second method was a destructive measurement with a penetrometer and the third method was a non-destructive manual measurement according to a sensoric scale.

The acoustic method was promising, but although the Firmalon was quick and easy to operate the technique was not ready for application in practice. A big disadvantage of the penetrometer was its destructive way of measuring firmness. The best applicable method proved to be the manual method.

Polderdijk, J.J., Kho, R.M., de Kruif, A.P.M. and Carmi, Y. (2000). FIRMNESS OF MANGOES (MANGIFERA INDICA L.) MEASURED ACOUSTICALLY, MECHANICALLY AND MANUALLY. Acta Hortic. 509, 861-865
DOI: 10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.509.102
https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2000.509.102
fruit quality, non-destructive measurement, ripening treatment, storage

Acta Horticulturae