Non-destructive fruit quality control. tester using near-infrared spectrometer (NIRS).
In fruit and vegetable establishing the optimal harvest time is a crucial issue, since fruit shelf-life potential and quality are closely related to the ripening stage at harvest. This is a very promising tool both for practical and scientific applications, since it allows to monitor on-tree fruit ripening, to establish accurately the optimal harvest time, and to reduce the variability which is present in fruit batches. It can be used as well in cool store to establish maturity changes.