Monitoring fruit quality over time offers the opportunity to correct agronomic practices and determine the right moment for fruit picking. Non-destructive in-field determination of fruit quality has always been difficult. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy technologies have been recently promoted as methods for the determination of several quality parameters. However, only few portable devices are currently available for direct non-destructive measurements. Among these, the Felix F-750 Produce Quality Meter has been used for mango, tomato, sweet cherry, apple, and other fruits in relation to fruit quality indices.

The Felix F-750 was used in an irrigation experiment conducted at Agriculture Victoria, Tatura, in summer 2017/18, to develop a model relating its readings to laboratory measurements of soluble solids concentration (SSC, °Brix) and dry matter concentration (DM, %) in September Bright nectarines. Trees were subjected to 12 different irrigation treatments. A drip irrigation system was used in the experiment and deficit irrigation treatments were applied as fractions of crop evapotranspiration (ETc) in all the fruit growth stages until harvest (3 March 2018), as shown in Table 1 (i.e. (a) stage I: cell division; (b) stage II: pit hardening; (c) stage IIIa: first part of cell expansion; and (d) stage IIIb: second part of cell expansion). A seasonal irrigation and rainfall summary is shown in Table 2.

This article appeared in the August/September issue of Australian Tree Crop magazine. The read the full story click here.