| To facilitate the use of near infrared technologies (NIR) for the California fruit industry, Dr. Elizabeth Mitcham from the Department of Plant Sciences, University of California has recently tested the Felix Instruments F-750 Produce Quality Meter on California cherries and pears. Robust and accurate NIR models for the rapid and non-destructive evaluation of soluble solids content and dry matter content in ‘Coral’, ‘Chelan’ and ‘Bing’ sweet cherries were successfully developed in 2015 to be applied in cold and room temperature environments by cherry growers, packing houses, and processors.
According to Dr. Mitcham, the device is simple to use, while providing the flexibility to create new models, when desired. Considering the importance of dry matter content as well as soluble solids content in the eating quality of sweet cherries, the use of handheld NIR devices, such as the F-750, could become a useful tool for routine analyses of cherry quality. Additional work is needed to confirm these promising results. |
