RESEARCH RESULTS
Mango colour and quality
In GreenCHAINge an innovative “smart chain” is being developed. Overall goal is to improve the intrinsic quality of the product on the shelf. Quality of mangoes can be determined by checking the colour of the flesh.
Objective
Measuring the colour of the mango flesh gives an indication of the quality / ripeness of ready to eat mangoes. Objective of this work was to determine the correlation of RTE mangos with “internal colour” and to obtain an objective and reliable method to phenotype internal colour.
Experiment and results
The internal colour of more than 3000 mangoes shipped from Brasil to the Netherlands was measured. These mangoes were shipped in 9 shipments between November 2016 and January 2017. Measurements show that increased internal colour (from class 1 (light yellow) to class 5 (dark yellow/orange) correlates with:
- Decreased firmness
- Higher ripening temperature
- More internal defects/browning
“Objective phenotyping” by automatically analyzing color pictures of standardized images, is reproducible and therefore more reliable compared to “subjective” division in five color classes. In addition, measurement of color pixels allows the use of a continuous scale for quality assessment which is more useful for data analysis.
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Conclusion
Internal color correlates with the ripening stage of mangos. This can be measured precisely with a camera system. A camera system gives a more reliable estimation of the colour than a human operator: it is reproducible. We conclude that objective phenotyping allows for standardisation of internal colour assessments throughout the whole supply chain, reducing human bias and error.
More information?
This project was commissioned and funded by Bakker Barendrecht, Vezet and Albert Heijn and cofunded by Top Sector for Horticulture & Starting Materials.
More detailed information about this research result can be found at: https://edepot.wur.nl/503221.
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FreshKnowledge Team