Use of nondestructive devices to support pre- and postharvest fruit management

Fruit quality is greatly affected by the ripening stage at harvest. In order to preserve quality traits, increase product marketability, and extend both the storage time and the shelf life, it is crucial to tailor postharvest strategies to ripening and physiological stages, and these need to be determined precisely. Surveying instruments working with modern technologies such as visible spectrometry can be precise and effective in assessing ripening stage and in grouping fruit in homogeneous classes. This paper reviews results using original nondestructive devices developed at the University of Bologna to define the fruit ripening of several fruit species through a new index (Index of Absorbance Difference (IAD)) to compare relationships among fruit ripening stage, fruit quality, and postharvest life. The devices defining the IAD can be used in the field (by the Difference Absorbance (DA)-Meter), at the packinghouse (with the DA-head, a stationary device), and at the cold storage level (with the DA Fruit Logger (DAFL)).