Identification of the apple firmness: two case studies

Firmness tests were performed with peeled and entire fruits of Elstar and Jonagold apple cultivars for identification and comparison. The normal distribution of the tested population was acceptable (level: 95%). The green and the red sides did not show differences within the cultivar but they were different in firmness. There was not significant difference between the flesh tissue firmness values, however the firmness of the entire (not peeled) fruits was different. This result was caused by the effect of the peel. The variability of the firmness with Jonagold was caused by the peel, but such a result was not found with Elstar. The test of the peel effect would be interesting with different cultivars and a sequence according to the firmness can be estimated. &nbsp

Applications of precision agriculture in horticultural crops

Farmer and consumer are driving the request for sustainable production of fruit and vegetables. Precision agriculture, the consideration of spatial and temporal variability for increasing the efficiency of resources, has been developed over the last twentyfive years and was initially applied to field crops. Its application to tree crops and vegetables started later and has been developing with an increasing number of publications as well as research calls in the beginning of the 21st century. First applications were described for mechanical harvesting of horticultural crops with commercial solutions for harvesting fruit that is subjected to processing. A review of methodical approaches and upcoming challenges for precise management of tree crops and vegetables are covered in this paper, addressing horticulturists as well as researchers working in precision agriculture. The precision agriculture domains with specific implications in horticultural crops captured are: data collection, yield mapping, remote sensing, quality mapping, and variable rate application. The spatial and temporal variability in orchards as well as effects of site-specific application of inputs are documented in this paper. © ISHS 2016

Outer product analysis of electronic nose and visible spectra: Application to the measurement of peach fruit characteristics

Visual aspect and aroma are among the most important features of fruit that determine consumer preferences. Electronic nose and spectroscopic techniques have shown positive results in evaluating some basic analytical parameters of fruit and global features such as the cultivar. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss a study aimed at evaluating the improvement derived by the fusion of visible spectra and electronic nose data. These experiments were per-formed on a population of yellow peaches belonging to two cultivars. Each sample was measured by visible optical spectroscopy and by electronic nose. In addition, a number of reference parameters were also measured by conventional destructive methodologies. Collected data were analysed individually and then fused together in order to classify the two cultivars and to estimate the reference parameters. Data fusion was performed building the outer product matrix for each measurement. The set of matrices was then successively unfolded and analysed by conventional chemometrics tools. Results were improved using outer products, for instance in classification average percentage errors of 25, 10, and 7 for electronic nose, spectra, and outer product, respectively was achieved. Regression analysis provides the evidence of a substantial orthogonal appearance of the datasets, which offer former hidden information on fruit classification. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved