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To address the challenges of unbalanced class labels with varying maturity levels of tomato fruits and low recognition accuracy for both fruits and stems in intelligent harvesting, we propose the YOLOX-SE-GIoU model for identifying tomato fruit maturity and stems. The SE focus module was incorporated into YOLOX to improve the identification accuracy, addressing the imbalance in the number of tomato fruits and stems. Additionally, we optimized the loss function to GIoU loss to minimize discrepancies across different scales of fruits and stems. The mean average precision (mAP) of the improved YOLOX-SE-GIoU model reaches 92.17%. Compared to YOLOv4, YOLOv5, YOLOv7, and YOLOX models, the improved model shows an improvement of 1.17–22.21%. The average precision (AP) for unbalanced semi-ripe tomatoes increased by 1.68–26.66%, while the AP for stems increased by 3.78–45.03%. Experimental results demonstrate that the YOLOX-SE-GIoU model exhibits superior overall recognition performance for unbalanced and scale-variant samples compared to the original model and other models in the same series. It effectively reduces false and missed detections during tomato harvesting, improving the identification accuracy of tomato fruits and stems. The findings of this work provide a technical foundation for developing advanced fruit harvesting techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The accurate and rapid detection of ginseng fruits in natural environments is crucial for the development of intelligent harvesting equipment for ginseng fruits. Due to the complexity and density of the growth environment of ginseng fruits, some newer visual detection methods currently fail to meet the requirements for accurate and rapid detection of ginseng fruits. Therefore, this study proposes the YOLO-Ginseng detection method. Methods: Firstly, this detection method innovatively proposes a plug-and-play deep hierarchical perception feature extraction module called C3f-RN, which incorporates a sliding window mechanism. Its unique structure enables the interactive processing of cross-window feature information, expanding the deep perception field of the network while effectively preserving important weight information. This addresses the detection challenges caused by occlusion or overlapping of ginseng fruits, significantly reducing the overall missed detection rate and improving the long-distance detection performance of ginseng fruits; Secondly, in order to maintain the balance between YOLO-Ginseng detection precision and speed, this study employs a mature channel pruning algorithm to compress the model. Results: The experimental results demonstrate that the compressed YOLO-Ginseng achieves an average precision of 95.6%, which is a 2.4% improvement compared to YOLOv5s and only a 0.2% decrease compared to the uncompressed version. The inference time of the model reaches 7.4ms. The compressed model exhibits reductions of 76.4%, 79.3%, and 74.2% in terms of model weight size, parameter count, and computational load, respectively. Discussion: Compared to other models, YOLO-Ginseng demonstrates superior overall detection performance. During the model deployment experiments, YOLO-Ginseng successfully performs real-time detection of ginseng fruits on the Jetson Orin Nano computing device, exhibiting good detection results. The average detection speed reaches 24.9 fps. The above results verify the effectiveness and practicability of YOLO-Ginseng, which creates primary conditions for the development of intelligent ginseng fruit picking equipment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harvest time is one of the key factors for obtaining high-quality cherry tomatoes. This parameter depends on environmental conditions and tomato variety. In plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs), it is possible to control environmental conditions to enhance tomato production and quality. Since the ripening status of tomato fruit is correlated with cumulative temperature (CT), and the temperature inside PFALs can be easily controlled, CT could be used as an alternative method to predict tomato harvest time. In this study, three experiments were conducted to determine the optimal CT for harvesting high-quality cherry tomatoes in a PFAL. The experiments aimed to (1) evaluate the yield and quality of cherry tomatoes as affected by different harvest times based on CT (ranging from 900 to 1400 °C), (2) comparatively evaluate the yield and quality of cherry tomatoes that were still on the plant and off the plant (in storage) based on the same CT levels (i.e., 1100, 1200, and 1300 °C), and (3) investigate the fruit-cracking percentage during the ripening stage based on CT levels. The results showed that the fruit harvested at lower CTs exhibited higher hardness values, while those harvested at higher CTs had a higher sugar content. The on-the-plant treatment resulted in a higher yield and sugar content compared with the off-the-plant treatment, indicating that harvesting tomatoes early would come at the expense of a certain yield and sweetness. Moreover, the fruit-cracking percentage tended to increase with increasing CT, possibly due to the fast fruit growth rate and increased internal turgor pressure. These results indicated that producers can use CT as an index to predict the harvest time, thereby optimizing profits in cherry tomato production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postharvest internal disorders (IDs) in mango fruit present a significant challenge to the industry, with their underlying causes still unclear. This study investigated the relationship between fruit maturity and the susceptibility of vapor heat-treated (VHT) 'B74' mangoes to IDs in three experiments. In the first experiment, fruit were categorized into three maturity groups based on dry matter content (DMC): <15%, 15–17%, and >17%, using a handheld near-infrared device. Half of the fruit in each group underwent VHT, while the remainder were untreated controls. Flesh cavity with white patches (FCWP) was the only disorder observed exclusively in VHT fruit. The incidence and severity of FCWP was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in fruit with <15% DMC, with 12.4% incidence and a severity score of 0.2 on a 0–3 scale (0: healthy and 3: severely affected), compared to more mature fruit. In the second experiment, the fruits were harvested at early and late maturity stages, with average DMC values of 14.5% and 17.4%, respectively. The fruit was subjected to no VHT, VHT, and VHT following a 12 h pre-conditioning period at 37 ± 1 °C. Consistent with the first experiment, FCWP was observed only in VHT fruit, with early-harvested fruit displaying a significantly higher (p < 0.05) FCWP incidence (26.9%) and severity (0.3) compared to late-harvested fruit (8.3% incidence and 0.1 severity). Pre-conditioning significantly reduced FCWP, particularly in early-harvested fruit. In the third experiment, fruit maturity sorted based on density was assessed, followed by VHT and simulated sea freight under controlled (CA) and ambient atmospheres. Fruit density did not effectively differentiate maturity considering DMC as a maturity indicator. Storage conditions significantly reduced (p < 0.05) flesh browning incidence from 71.1% under ambient conditions to 33.3% under CA. This study highlights fruit maturity as a key factor in the susceptibility of 'B74' mangoes to postharvest IDs following VHT. Therefore, sorting fruit based on DMC at harvest or at the packing facility prior to VHT serves as a valuable decision support for reducing IDs in VHT fruit. Further research will explore advanced technologies to enable rapid and efficient fruit sorting based on DMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate fruit detection is crucial for automated fruit picking. However, real-world scenarios, influenced by complex environmental factors such as illumination variations, occlusion, and overlap, pose significant challenges to accurate fruit detection. These challenges subsequently impact the commercialization of fruit harvesting robots. A tomato detection model named YOLO-SwinTF, based on YOLOv7, is proposed to address these challenges. Integrating Swin Transformer (ST) blocks into the backbone network enables the model to capture global information by modeling long-range visual dependencies. Trident Pyramid Networks (TPN) are introduced to overcome the limitations of PANet's focus on communication-based processing. TPN incorporates multiple self-processing (SP) modules within existing top-down and bottom-up architectures, allowing feature maps to generate new findings for communication. In addition, Focaler-IoU is introduced to reconstruct the original intersection-over-union (IoU) loss to allow the loss function to adjust its focus based on the distribution of difficult and easy samples. The proposed model is evaluated on a tomato dataset, and the experimental results demonstrated that the proposed model's detection recall, precision, F1 score, and AP reach 96.27%, 96.17%, 96.22%, and 98.67%, respectively. These represent improvements of 1.64%, 0.92%, 1.28%, and 0.88% compared to the original YOLOv7 model. When compared to other state-of-the-art detection methods, this approach achieves superior performance in terms of accuracy while maintaining comparable detection speed. In addition, the proposed model exhibits strong robustness under various lighting and occlusion conditions, demonstrating its significant potential in tomato detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positioning of mango picking points is a crucial technology for the realisation of automated robotic mango harvesting. Herein, this study reported a visualised end-to-end system for mango picking point positioning using improved YOLOv8 architecture with object detection and instance segmentation, as well as an algorithm of picking point positioning. At first, the improved YOLOv8n model, incorporating the BiFPN structure and the SPD-Conv module, was utilised to enhance the detection performance of mango fruits and stems. This model achieved a detection precision of 98.9% in fruits and 97.1% in stems, with recall of 99.5% and 94.6% respectively. Then, the YOLOv8n-seg model was used for segment the stem ROI (Region of interest), leading to 81.85% in MIoU and 88.69% in mPA. Finally, a skeleton line of the stem region was obtained on the basis of the segmentation image, and a picking point positioning algorithm was developed to determine the coordinates of the optimal picking point. Subsequently, the positioning success rate of coordinates, absolute errors, and relative errors were calculated by comparing the automatic positioned coordinates with the manually positioned stem region. Experimental results indicated that this study achieved an average positioning success rate of 92.01%, with an average absolute error of 4.93 pixels and an average relative error of 13.11%. Additionally, the average processing time for processing 640 images using the picking point positioning system is 72.75 ms. This study demonstrates the reliability and effectiveness of positioning mango picking points, laying the technological basis for the automated harvesting of mango fruits. • Simultaneous detection of mango fruits and fruiting stems. • A picking point positioning algorithm is proposed based on instance segmentation. • Development of an end-to-end mango picking point positioning system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the problem of detecting occluded apples in complex unstructured environments in orchards and proposes an apple detection and segmentation model based on improved YOLOv8n-SGW-YOLOv8n. The model improves apple detection and segmentation by combining the SPD-Conv convolution module, the GAM global attention mechanism, and the Wise-IoU loss function, which enhances the accuracy and robustness. The SPD-Conv module preserves fine-grained features in the image by converting spatial information into channel information, which is particularly suitable for small target detection. The GAM global attention mechanism enhances the recognition of occluded targets by strengthening the feature representation of channel and spatial dimensions. The Wise-IoU loss function further optimises the regression accuracy of the target frame. Finally, the pre-prepared dataset is used for model training and validation. The results show that the SGW-YOLOv8n model significantly improves relative to the original YOLOv8n in target detection and instance segmentation tasks, especially in occlusion scenes. The model improves the detection mAP to 75.9% and the segmentation mAP to 75.7% and maintains a processing speed of 44.37 FPS, which can meet the real-time requirements, providing effective technical support for the detection and segmentation of fruits in complex unstructured environments for fruit harvesting robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate fruit detection is crucial for automated fruit picking. However, real-world scenarios, influenced by complex environmental factors such as illumination variations, occlusion, and overlap, pose significant challenges to accurate fruit detection. These challenges subsequently impact the commercialization of fruit harvesting robots. A tomato detection model named YOLO-SwinTF, based on YOLOv7, is proposed to address these challenges. Integrating Swin Transformer (ST) blocks into the backbone network enables the model to capture global information by modeling long-range visual dependencies. Trident Pyramid Networks (TPN) are introduced to overcome the limitations of PANet's focus on communication-based processing. TPN incorporates multiple self-processing (SP) modules within existing top-down and bottom-up architectures, allowing feature maps to generate new findings for communication. In addition, Focaler-IoU is introduced to reconstruct the original intersection-over-union (IoU) loss to allow the loss function to adjust its focus based on the distribution of difficult and easy samples. The proposed model is evaluated on a tomato dataset, and the experimental results demonstrated that the proposed model's detection recall, precision, F1 score, and AP reach 96.27%, 96.17%, 96.22%, and 98.67%, respectively. These represent improvements of 1.64%, 0.92%, 1.28%, and 0.88% compared to the original YOLOv7 model. When compared to other state-of-the-art detection methods, this approach achieves superior performance in terms of accuracy while maintaining comparable detection speed. In addition, the proposed model exhibits strong robustness under various lighting and occlusion conditions, demonstrating its significant potential in tomato detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of fruit harvesting robots is becoming increasingly mature. However, the utilization of fruit macroscopic mechanics as the picking threshold in the robotic end-effector may result in fruit damage, as the internal microscopic mechanics of the fruit may have varying stress thresholds. This work proposed a modeling method for the micro-analysis of tomato fruit peel based on image processing techniques. Leveraging programming techniques, optical microscopic images of fruit peel cell tissue are obtained and processed to extract the porous structure, enabling the subsequent reconstruction of geometric models. An enhanced generalized Maxwell model is employed in this study, wherein INP files were autonomously generated through programming and imported into Abaqus for microscale mechanical simulation analysis of fruit peel. Based on this methodology, it was possible to simulate the viscoelastic mechanical behavior of fruit peel solely through the optical tissue images. By examining the stress relaxation curves of fruit peel, a more comprehensive understanding of the microscopic mechanical behavior of the fruit was attained. This study contributed to providing a more precise reference standard for the gripping force threshold during robotic harvesting, thereby enhancing the efficiency of harvesting robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plastic covers have been used to prevent environmental constraints negatively affecting sweet cherry production in Southern Chile. However, less information is available on agronomic practices and their effects on fruit quality in sweet cherry covered orchards. Thus, in this study, we evaluated the impact of fruit load regulation on cherries' antioxidant-related parameters and the quality and condition at harvest and postharvest in sweet cherry (Prunus avium) cv. Regina that was cultivated under a plastic cover in Southern Chile. For this, four fruit load treatments were manually applied—(i) 100% fruit load (the control), (ii) 80% fruit load, (iii) 60% fruit load, and (iv) 40% fruit load—in a commercial sweet cherry orchard for two seasons (2021/2022 and 2022/2023). The results revealed that the yield and fruit load were not significantly different between the treatments. Interestingly, the 60% and 40% fruit loads increased the fresh weight, fruit size, and firmness (20.3%) compared to the control (the 100% fruit load) during both seasons. Likewise, the 60% and 40% fruit load treatments exhibited the highest fruit size distribution of 30 mm, while the 100 and 80% fruit load treatments showed the highest fruit distribution with fruit sizes between 28 mm and 24 mm. The total soluble solids (TSSs) did not vary among the fruit load treatments, while a significant increase was found in the titratable acidity (TA) in the 60 and 40% fruit load treatments during both seasons. No significant differences in antioxidant activity (AA) and total phenols (TPHs) among the treatments were observed during both seasons. Overall, the results revealed that the fruit load treatments, mainly 40%, increased the fruit weight and firmness and reduced pitting in fruits by 39.4% at postharvest. Thus, fruit thinning might be an important agronomical practice to regulate fruit load, positively affecting fruit quality at harvest and during postharvest storage in sweet cherry cv. Regina cultivated under a plastic cover. However, more biochemical and molecular studies are needed to elucidate the mechanism involved in this improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Avocado fruits are considered unusual because of the large amounts of oil and seven-carbon (7-C) carbohydrates (mannoheptulose and perseitol) in the fruit's flesh and skin. The fruit may be held on the tree unripe until required for marketing, and in some producing regions, this may extend past the next flowering period. This prolonged period on the tree is associated with increased oil content and decreased 7-C carbohydrates. There has been relatively less research into soluble hexose sugars and starch. In this research, the inter-relationships between fruit maturation, storage, and ripening have been investigated for both 7-C and six-carbon non-structural carbohydrates using 'Hass' fruit harvested from the same trees between 11 and 14 months after flowering. Significant differences were identified in both fruit flesh and skin for most compounds, affected by maturity, storage, and ripening. It is concluded that the non-structural carbohydrate composition of 'Hass' fruit is variable, with significant changes occurring associated with maturation, storage, and ripening. The compositions of the flesh and skin tissues are not consistently proportionate. Maturation provides the initial baseline composition from which any further change through storage or ripening can occur. The changes with maturation appear to be associated with the tree's phenology, with tree-to-tree differences in the timing or degree of change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During postharvest cold storage, fruit sustains physical and biochemical changes, which may result in physiological rind disorders that consequently affect the fruit's marketability. Preharvest conditions are known to affect postharvest fruit quality, with the effect of preharvest shade netting being currently unknown. To this end, 'Nadorcott' mandarin (Citrus reticulata Blanco) fruit, grown under shade netting and without it, was harvested during two consecutive seasons from an orchard in Citrusdal, Western Cape, South Africa. The fruit was evaluated prior to, as well as after a 7-day shelf-life period following cold storage at either −0.6 or 4 °C for 14, 27 and 34 days, respectively, for changes in rind and pulp colour, rind carotenoids, soluble solid content (SSC), citric acid content and SSC/citric acid ratio. Weight loss and the incidence of rind physiological disorders (staining) were also recorded. The results showed that shade net did not affect the storage behaviour of the fruit, as no treatment differences were seen. However, a storage duration effect for both treatments was evident in some internal and external quality parameters, viz., weight loss percentage and carotenoid content increased over the storage duration. Inconsistency regarding the storage duration effect on the rind colour, SSC and acid content were evident between seasons, at both temperatures. Staining only occurred in the first season after 34 days at both temperatures. The results indicated that shade netting had no negative effect on the cold-storage behaviour of 'Nadorcott' fruit. However, contrasting findings from this study emphasized that the condition of the fruit at harvest plays a significant role in the postharvest behaviour of the fruit during cold storage, and different growing conditions may also be a contributable factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of spatial pose information and the low positioning accuracy of the picking target are the key factors affecting the picking function of citrus-picking robots. In this paper, a new method for automatic citrus fruit harvest is proposed, which uses semantic segmentation and rotating target detection to estimate the pose of a single culture. First, Faster R-CNN is used for grab detection to identify candidate grab frames. At the same time, the semantic segmentation network extracts the contour information of the citrus fruit to be harvested. Then, the capture frame with the highest confidence is selected for each target fruit using the semantic segmentation results, and the rough angle is estimated. The network uses image-processing technology and a camera-imaging model to further segment the mask image of the fruit and its epiphyllous branches and realize the fitting of contour, fruit centroid, and fruit minimum outer rectangular frame and three-dimensional boundary frame. The positional relationship of the citrus fruit to its epiphytic branches was used to estimate the three-dimensional pose of the citrus fruit. The effectiveness of the method was verified through citrus-planting experiments, and then field picking experiments were carried out in the natural environment of orchards. The results showed that the success rate of citrus fruit recognition and positioning was 93.6%, the average attitude estimation angle error was 7.9°, and the success rate of picking was 85.1%. The average picking time is 5.6 s, indicating that the robot can effectively perform intelligent picking operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fruit cracking impacts the quality of sweet cherry, significantly affecting its marketability due to increased susceptibility to injury, aesthetic flaws, and susceptibility to pathogens. The effect of 1% biofilm (Parka™) application regimes on fruit cracking and other quality parameters in the '0900 Ziraat' cherry cultivar was investigated in this study. Fruit sprayed with water were served as control (U1). Fruit treated only once with biofilm three, two and one week before the commercial harvest were considered as U2, U3 and U4, respectively. Fruit treated with biofilm three, two, and one week before harvest were considered as U5; three and two week before harvest as U6; two and one week before harvest as U7; and fruit treated three and one week before harvest as U8. Results: In both measurement periods, the lower cracking index was obtained in biofilm-treated sweet cherry fruit. However, the firmness of biofilm-treated fruit was higher than that of the control fruit. The lowest respiration rate was observed in U7, while the highest weight was recorded in U4 and U5 than the control. The biofilm application decreased fruit coloration. The biofilm application also increased the soluble solids content of the fruit. The U2, U3 and U4 applications at harvest showed higher titratable acidity than the control. In both measurement periods, the vitamin C content of the U2, U5, U6, U7 and U8 applications was found to be higher than that of the control. The total monomeric anthocyanin of the U3 and U8 applications was higher than that of the control. Furthermore, the antioxidant activity of the U2, U3 and U5 in the DPPH, and the U7 and U8 in FRAP were measured higher thanthat of the control. Conclusions: The application of biofilms has the potential to mitigate fruit cracking, prolong postharvest life of sweet cherries, and enhance fruit firmness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims The softening of ripening fruit involves partial depolymerization of cell-wall pectin by three types of reaction: enzymic hydrolysis, enzymic elimination (lyase-catalysed) and non-enzymic oxidative scission. Two known lyase activities are pectate lyase and rhamnogalacturonan lyase (RGL), potentially causing mid-chain cleavage of homogalacturonan and rhamnogalacturonan-I (RG-I) domains of pectin respectively. However, the important biological question of whether RGL exhibits action in vivo had not been tested. Methods We developed a method for specifically and sensitively detecting in-vivo RGL products, based on Driselase digestion of cell walls and detection of a characteristic unsaturated 'fingerprint' product (tetrasaccharide) of RGL action. Key Results In model experiments, potato RG-I that had been partially cleaved in vitro by commercial RGL was digested by Driselase, releasing an unsaturated tetrasaccharide ('ΔUA-Rha-GalA-Rha'), taken as diagnostic of RGL action. This highly acidic fingerprint compound was separated from monosaccharides (galacturonate, galactose, rhamnose, etc.) by electrophoresis at pH 2, then separated from ΔUA-GalA (the fingerprint of pectate lyase action) by thin-layer chromatography. The 'ΔUA-Rha-GalA-Rha' was confirmed as 4-deoxy-β- l - threo -hex-4-enopyranuronosyl-(1→2)- l -rhamnosyl-(1→4)- d -galacturonosyl-(1→2)- l -rhamnose by mass spectrometry and acid hydrolysis. Driselase digestion of cell walls from diverse ripe fruits [date, sea buckthorn, cranberry, yew (arils), mango, plum, blackberry, apple, pear and strawberry] yielded the same fingerprint compound, demonstrating that RGL had been acting in vivo in these fruits prior to harvest. The 'fingerprint' : (galacturonate + rhamnose) ratio in digests from ripe dates was approximately 1 : 72 (mol/mol), indicating that ~1.4 % of the backbone Rha→GalA bonds in endogenous RG-I had been cleaved by in-vivo RGL action. Conclusions The results provide the first demonstration that RGL, previously known from studies of fruit gene expression, proteomic studies and in-vitro enzyme activity, exhibits enzyme action in the walls of soft fruits and may thus be proposed to contribute to fruit softening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fruit of rosehip (Rosa canina L.) has high economic, medicinal, and nutritional values. Rosehip is rarely consumed fresh due to limitations of seasonality and short shelf life. They are usually processed, which affects the nutritional and sensory characteristics of rosehip products. Radiation processing along with storage at 4 °C is a way to increase safety and prolong fresh rosehip durability. Rosehip fruits were harvested at enough maturity stage, irradiated at doses of 0 (control), 0.5, 1, and 1.5 kGy, and stored at 25 and 4 °C for 60 days. Gamma irradiation at 1 kGy caused an increase in weight loss during storage for 60 days at 25 °C. Microbial counts, total phenolic contents (TPC), total anthocyanin contents (TAC), ascorbic acid contents (AAC), DPPH• scavenging activity, total colour difference (∆Eh), and sensory properties were acceptable in the sample irradiated at 1 kGy and preserved for 60 days at 4 °C. The amounts of acidity, pH, and total soluble solids (TSS) were not significantly different from the control. Gamma irradiation at 1 kGy and thereafter storage of the irradiated fruit at 4 °C are suggested as minimal processing and storage conditions of rosehip fresh fruit (RFF) for 60 days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To characterize the physicochemical properties of the pulp from four varieties of prickly pear collected in three localities from the municipality of Salinas, San Luis Potosí. Design/Methodology/Approach: The following characteristics were recorded in 15 fruits of each variety: fruit size (equatorial and polar diameter), fresh biomass of total fruit, peel, and locule. Nine fruits per replicate were used (one fruit equals one replicate) to analyze moisture, ash content, total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, and total soluble sugars. Results: The physical differences of the fruits, total fresh weight, and equatorial and polar diameter match the typical characteristics of each variety. The largest fruits were (in descending order): Cristalina, Fafayuca, Naranjona, and Cardona. The highest moisture percentage (87.34%) was reported in Cristalina. Varieties such as Fafayuca from La Reforma and Naranjona from Salinas de Hidalgo had the highest and lowest concentration of total soluble sugars (25.84 and 11.46 g 100 g-1 FW, respectively). The fruits had a titratable acidity from 0.01 to 0.03% citric acid, while total soluble solids ranged from 11.60 to 15.84 °Brix. Study Limitations/Implications: Harvesting was based on the visual parameters established by the farmers. Findings/Conclusions: Fruits harvested from backyard orchards (<500 m²) had fruits of greater weight, which are used for self-consumption. The amount of total soluble solids and total soluble sugars per variety was different between localities, indicating that farmers from different localities have different harvesting criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the changes in chemical composition of fresh red raspberry 'Willamette' fruits caused by the presence of raspberry leaf blotch emaravirus (RLBV). In three experimental orchards of 'Willamette' raspberry, fruits were harvested from RLBV-free and RLBV-infected plants in 2019 and 2020. Fruits were collected at appropriate maturity stages and further analyzed in terms of total phenolics, total anthocyanins, and selected individual phenolics. In all three experimental orchards, the phenolic profiles of the infected and uninfected fruit samples were considerably different during both studied years. Nonetheless, the intensity of the modifications varied greatly depending on the location and harvest year. Statistical analysis revealed that the influence of RLBV infection on the studied features was undeniable, although the influences of weather conditions and soil composition outweighed the influence of RLBV. Taking into consideration all the experimental and statistical data, it can be concluded that RLBV had an impact on the phenolic profile of raspberry 'Willamette' fruits, while sensitivity to environmental conditions and soil composition is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to estimate the base temperature for the appearance of fruits at harvest point in the strawberry and to propose a concept to represent the time required for the appearance of fruits in consecutive harvests. The experiment was conducted in 2021 in four seedling transplanting seasons: May (season 1), June (season 2), July (season 3) and August (season 4) of two cultivars: Fronteras and Merced. Twenty-four consecutive fruit harvests were carried out from September 9, 2021, to December 1, 2021, when the number, length (cm), diameter (mm), and fresh weight of the fruits (g) were evaluated. The base temperature for the fruit emission of the strawberry was calculated using the method of the smallest mean square error. Carpochron was estimated at each season and for each cultivar, obtaining a simple linear regression between the number of fruits and the accumulated thermal sum (°C day) and the number of days after transplanting (DAT), using as base temperature the one estimated in this work. The base temperature for the appearance of consecutive fruits at the harvest point in the strawberry is 11°C. Carpochron increases with the delay of the transplanting season and the values ranged from 81.97°C fruit day to 144.93°C fruit day for cultivars Merced and Fronteras. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Academic Journal of Agriculture / Akademik Ziraat Dergisi is the property of University of Ordu, Faculty of Agriculture, Academic Journal of Agriculture and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Post-harvest losses caused by poor fruit storage can in some cases reach more than 80% of the crop. For the mangosteen crop, these losses are all the more important as they constitute a major problem. In Côte d'Ivoire, the few mangosteen preservation techniques have been developed mainly by traders and are based on limiting exchanges with the surrounding environment. However, these techniques are not very effective because they only preserve the fruit for a few days. In order to address this issue, the present study aims to evaluate the influence of the harvesting stage and the effectiveness of preservation treatments on the storage time and the evolution of several physical and biochemical parameters of the mangosteen. To this end, mangosteens harvested at two different stages of maturity were subjected to different preservation treatments (refrigeration, bagging, oil coating and blanching). The results showed that the storage time of the mangosteen was significantly longer with fruit harvested at the orange-red stage. Also, two of the four storage treatments evaluated, namely refrigeration and bagging, significantly extended the shelf life of the mangosteen (+15 and+6 days respectively with these treatments). In contrast to these treatments, blanching caused a reduction in fruit storage time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mango fruit exhibited great postharvest losses due to its climacteric pattern of respiration and high perishability. During storage periods, a high rate of water loss takes place by the process of evaporation and transpiration, which greatly affects market value and quality. The influence of potassium permanganate on the quality and storage life of mango (cv. Anwar Rataul) fruit was investigated by harvesting the fruit at the hard green stage of maturity and treating it with various potassium permanganate levels (0 (untreated), 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 g). The treated and untreated fruits were stored at a 25 °C temperature while the relative humidity (RH) was kept at 75% and analyzed for quality traits after 0 (fresh fruit), 5, 10, 15, and 20 days). The results showed that the 30 g KMnO4 was the optimum level to maintain and achieve the maximum values of color, taste, aroma, firmness, total sugar, pH, and total soluble solids (TSS) with the minimum weight loss and waste percent after 20 days of storage. However, higher acidity and ascorbic acid were recorded with the 50 g KMnO4 level. The untreated fruits (control) did not retain the quality attributes for a longer period of time and deteriorated after 15 days. The results indicated that the KMnO4 levels and storage durations had significant effects on most of the parameters under the limit P < 0.05. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of the environment and the genetic factor on the the phenology of 16 advanced selections of peachtrees in the municipality of Urussanga, state of Santa Catarina. The experiment was conducted in two areas (360 m and 220 m above sea level) in 2017, 2018, and 2019 harvests. The selections are part of the EPAGRI fruit breeding program. The dates of beginning, full, and end of flowering and budding, percentage of flowering, budding and effective fructification were determined. The standard model (number of hours with temperatures below 7.2 °C) was not the most suitable. Full flowering was anticipated by five days, on average over three years, at the highest altitude due to the greater accumulation of cold. The 16 selections were classified into three groups: early (harvest in October), medium (harvest in November), and late (harvest in December). It is concluded that the environment and the genetic factor influence the phenology of advanced peach selections. Being the first, it influences the periods of flowering and budding and the percentages of flowering, budding and effective fruiting. The second with emphasis the maturation cycle and the harvest period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, Camellia oleifera fruit harvesting relies on manual labor with low efficiency, while mechanized harvesting could result in bud damage because flowering and fruiting are synchronized. As a prerequisite, rapid detection and identification are urgently needed for high accuracy and efficiency with simple models to realize selective and intelligent harvesting. In this paper, a lightweight detection algorithm YOLOv5s-Camellia based on YOLOv5s is proposed. First, the network unit of the lightweight network ShuffleNetv2 was used to reconstruct the backbone network, and thereby the number of computations and parameters of the model was reduced to increase the running speed for saving computational costs. Second, to mitigate the impact of the lightweight improvement on model detection accuracy, three efficient channel attention (ECA) modules were introduced into the backbone network to enhance the network's attention to fruit features, and the Concat operation in the neck network was replaced by the Add operation with fewer parameters, which could increase the amount of information under features while maintaining the same number of channels. Third, the Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELU) activation function was introduced to improve the nonlinear characterization ability of the network. In addition, to improve the ability of the network to locate objects in the natural environment, the penalty index was redefined to optimize the bounding box loss function, which can improve the convergence speed and regression accuracy. Furthermore, the final experimental results showed that this model possesses 98.8% accuracy, 5.5 G FLOPs computation, and 6.3 MB size, and the detection speed reached 60.98 frame/s. Compared with the original algorithm, the calculation amount, size, and parameters were reduced by 65.18%, 56.55%, and 57.59%, respectively. The results can provide a technical reference for the development of a Camellia oleifera fruit-harvesting robot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The end effector plays a critical role in fruit picking by a robotic fruit harvesting system. A newly developed vacuum-based robotic apple harvesting system, using the twist-and-pull fruit picking method, has shown promise in picking fruit from clusters and navigating through the tree canopies. The robot's original thin foam end effector failed to achieve acceptable picking performance because it was unable to conform to fruit of different sizes and thus could not generate sufficient suction forces needed to detach fruit. This research was therefore aimed at developing new end effectors to greatly enhance the robot's fruit picking performance. Field manual pulling and twisting experiments for three varieties of apples were conducted, and the critical pulling or suction force and twisting torque needed to detach 95% of apples were determined to be 28.3 N and 0.257 N-m (equivalent to a pulling force of 21.0 N for the current robot's configuration), respectively. Three new silicone-based end effectors of different geometries (denoted as "Straight", "Bellow" and "Curved") were designed and fabricated, and they were evaluated in lab and field experiments. Results showed that the three new end effectors performed significantly better than the original, unconformable end effector based on multiple performance metrics, including vacuum pressure, overall picking success rate, picking rate by the rotation mechanism, and fruit attachment orientation. The "Straight" end effector performed consistently better than the other two new end effectors; it had 87% overall picking success rate, 65% success rate by the rotation mechanism alone, and 89% success rate when the middle section or cheek of fruit attached to the end effector. With further improvements, the "Straight" end effector should meet the apple picking performance requirement for the new vacuum-based robotic harvesting system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effect of refrigeration and different harvesting times were investigated to remove residue of pyridaben from strawberry. Transplants of Strawberry were grown in greenhouse and fruit samples were taken at 1, 4, 24, 48 and 72 hours and 7, 14 and 21 days after spraying of pyridaben (Sanmite® 20% WP) at the recommended and twice the recommended doses (0.4 and 0.8lit ha-1 respectively). For cooling treatment, fruit samples were refrigerated for 48 hours at 4°C. The study was done as factorial experiment in a completely randomized design (pyridaben doses and harvesting times after spraying) with three replications. Gas chromatography-electron capture detector (GC-ECD) method was used to determine pyridaben residues in strawberry fruits. The recovery rate of acaricide was 98-105% in this method and detection limit of machine was 50μg kg-1. The results revealed that the maximum residual concentrations of pyridaben acaricide in strawberry fruits were observed with an average of 0.42 mg kg-1 for the recommended dose and 0.71mg kg-1 for twice the recommended dose at 4 and 24 h after application, respectively, which in twice the recommended dose was higher than the MRL (5mg kg-1). Storing fruits in refrigerator for 48 hours had little effect on reducing pyridaben residues in them, and at twice the recommended dose, the concentration of pesticide in fruits was higher than that of Codex standard level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: An engine operated jamun harvester to shake the limb with adjustable shaking frequency and amplitude was developed. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the performance of the jamun harvester and determine the suitable shaking frequency and amplitude to obtain maximum harvesting efficiency. Methods: A 4x3 factorial experiment with completely randomized design was conducted to investigate the effects of shaking amplitude (10, 20, 30 and 40 mm) and frequency (2, 4 and 6 Hz) on percentage matured jamun harvested, fruit removal percentage and harvesting efficiency. Result: Analysis of variance and mean comparison showed that the shaking amplitude and shaking frequency both had significant effect on percentage matured jamun harvested, fruit removal percentage and harvesting efficiency. The fruit removal percentage increased at higher levels of shaking amplitude and frequency. Complete fruit removal (100%) was achieved at 6 Hz shaking frequency and 40 mm amplitude, however shattering of leaves and immature fruits were observed. Therefore, shaking amplitude of 30 mm and shaking frequency of 6 Hz was recommended for Jamun harvesting with 93.15% fruit removal and 64.33% harvesting efficiency. The fruit detachment force to fruit weight ratio (FDF/W) of Jamun varied from 1.46 to 0.23. The cost of harvesting of jamun by the developed harvester was found to be approx. Rs. 9/- as compared to Rs. 15/- per kg fruit for manual harvesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate dry matter determination (DM) in Hass avocados is vital for optimal harvesting and ensuring fruit quality. Predictive models based on NIRS need to capture fruit DM gradient. This work aimed to determine the DM content in Hass avocado whole by NIRS scanning different fruit zones. Spectra were recorded for each zone of the fruit: peduncle (P), equator (E), and base (B). The calibration and validation included fruit from different orchards in two harvest cycles. The results show a DM gradient within the fruit: 24.47% (E), 24.68% (B), and 24.79% (P). The DM gradient was observed within the spectra using the RMSi (root mean square) criterion and PCA. The results show that at least one spectrum per fruit zone was needed to represent the variability within the fruit. The performances of the calibration using the whole set of data were R2: 0.74 and standard error of cross-validation (SECV) = 1.18%. In the validation stage using independent validation sets, the models showed similar performance (R2: 0.75, SECV 1.15%) with low values of the standard error of prediction (SEP): 1.62%. These results demonstrate the potential of near-infrared spectroscopy for high-throughput sorting of avocados based on their commercial quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The farming industry is facing the major challenge of intensive and inefficient harvesting labors. Thus, an efficient and automated fruit harvesting system is required. In this study, three object classification models based on Yolov5m integrated with BoTNet, ShuffleNet, and GhostNet convolutional neural networks (CNNs), respectively, are proposed for the automatic detection of tomato fruit. The various models were trained using 1508 normalized images containing three classes of cherry tomatoes, namely ripe, immature, and damaged. The detection accuracy for the three classes was found to be 94%, 95%, and 96%, respectively, for the modified Yolov5m + BoTNet model. The model thus appeared to provide a promising basis for the further development of automated harvesting systems for tomato fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating the behavior of fruit width and length characters throughout the pepper crop cycle is essential for researchers in decision-making aimed at developing appropriate management techniques and harvesting fruits at proper growth stages. The Nonlinear Mixed-Effect Models (NLME) method is recommended to jointly model the residuals and the entire database, including group effects, to describe growth curves. This work compared four nonlinear equations (Gompertz, Logistic, Richards, and von Bertalanffy) by including groups (pepper and bell pepper) to describe the pepper genotypes' length and width growth. Of the eight genotypes used, three were bell pepper, and five were pepper. For each, fruit length and width were measured in 10 periods. According to the fit-quality measures studied, the best model for adjusting the length of the fruit was the Richards ( R a d j. 2 = 0.9960 ), while for the width, it was the Logistic ( R a d j. 2 = 0.9957 ). The estimated random effects showed that for asymptotic length and time to the inflection point presented a correlation of 0.75, indicating a positive association between these traits. For width, however, this result was different: −0.02. NLME adjustment allowed efficient prediction of values and efficient characterization of the studied genotypes, proving to be an efficient method for longitudinal data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Food Research & Development is the property of Food Research & Development Editorial Department and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fruit detection and recognition has an important impact on fruit and vegetable harvesting, yield prediction and growth information monitoring in the automation process of modern agriculture, and the actual complex environment of orchards poses some challenges for accurate fruit detection. In order to achieve accurate detection of green fruits in complex orchard environments, this paper proposes an accurate object detection method for green fruits based on optimized YOLOX_m. First, the model extracts features from the input image using the CSPDarkNet backbone network to obtain three effective feature layers at different scales. Then, these effective feature layers are fed into the feature fusion pyramid network for enhanced feature extraction, which combines feature information from different scales, and in this process, the Atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) module is used to increase the receptive field and enhance the network's ability to obtain multi-scale contextual information. Finally, the fused features are fed into the head prediction network for classification prediction and regression prediction. In addition, Varifocal loss is used tomitigate the negative impact of unbalanced distribution of positive and negative samples to obtain higher precision. The experimental results show that the model in this paper has improved on both apple and persimmon datasets, with the average precision (AP) reaching 64.3% and 74.7%, respectively. Compared with other models commonly used for detection, themodel approach in this study has a higher average precision and has improved in other performance metrics, which can provide a reference for the detection of other fruits and vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Persea schiedeana Nees is a fruit tree native to Mesoamerica, partially endemic to Mexico, found along the plain of the Gulf of Mexico. The objective was to evaluate the edaphoclimatic, morphological and chemical descriptors and compare the differences between the study regions that allow their revaluation. The study regions were: Soconusco in Tuxtla Chico, Chiapas, Selva in Palenque, Chiapas; Chontalpa in Comalcalco, Tabasco and Sierra Nororiental in Teziutlán, Puebla. In July 2019, 5 trees were randomly selected from each region for the harvest of 44 fruits, giving a total of 176 fruits and 1 584 determinations. An analysis of variance was performed to find the differences between regions and a Tukey test for the comparison of means of the morphological and physicochemical parameters evaluated, using the statistical software Minitab®. The fruits from the Selva region in Palenque, Chiapas, presented greater value in weight (417.5 ±69.7 g), length (18.48 ±1.56 cm), pulp (282.09 ±54.72%) and fat (50.29 ±2.03%). The Soconusco region, Chiapas reached the highest percentages of protein in pulp (2.79 ±0.54%), seed (1.76 ±0.14%) and peel (2.64 ±0.19%). The results obtained suggest the existence of variation between the materials of Persea schiedeana Nees in the regions studied, allowing the identification of those with agroindustrial potential, constituting an alternative to diversify the production of Persea spp., in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The native fruits of Persea americana Mill. var. Drymifolia are generally consumed and marketed locally, their quality attributes and recommended physiological state of harvest have been little studied. The objective of this research was to evaluate quality parameters such as firmness, weight loss and color of fruits of ‘Lonjas’ avocado harvested in three physiological states of maturity (green, changing and black) to compare which of them retains the best parameters when reaching consumption maturity. The fruits were harvested in Tacámbaro, Michoacán in 2019, the variables evaluated the day after the harvest were: length, diameter, thickness of the epicarp, weight of the epicarp, mesocarp and seed, the fruits were stored at 22 ±2 °C, the loss of weight, firmness and color of the fruit until maturity of consumption were evaluated every two days. On the other hand, the refrigeration effect (13 ±2 °C) of fruits in changing state was evaluated. Fruits in the changing physiological state presented the largest dimension, as well as the highest pulp and seed content. Of the fruits stored at 22 ±2 °C, the green physiological state had less weight loss. Nevertheless, when reaching consumption maturity, the three physiological states presented similar values of firmness and color of the epicarp. In the changing physiological state, the values related to the color of the mesocarp stood out. The time of harvest depends on the quality parameter in which there is the greatest interest. Refrigeration is recommended to extend the shelf life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of the project Environmental Bases for the Local Alimentary Sustainability was created in the Cooperative of Credits and Services "Frank País" of the municipality Güira de Melena, the mini-industry "San Miguel", with the objective of minimizing the adverse effects of the climaticchange that causes production losses and this way to achieve a precise planning of the volumes of products of fruits and vegetables to harvest and the ways for its commercialization. Seven years after the creation and starting of the mini-industry, it becomes necessary to value the economic feasibility in itsoperation with the purpose of contributing information for the taking of decisions as for the creation and management of other similar industries. For the economic analysis were used the cost of initial investment, starting from the expenses in Cuban pesos for the construction of the mini-industry and the machines, which were added later on, in order to know his total amount. The results obtained during the period 2016-2021 show that 45.23% of raw material supplied to the mini-industry had good use, having in the first year of exploitation 1 728.2 hundreds of Cuban pesos of net profit and reaching up to 6 149.0 hundreds of Cuban pesos in the last year of study as consequence of the increase of the productive capacity, existing a yearly relationship benefit-cost of 1.81 as average and a time of recovering of the investment of 3.42 years, what demonstrates that under similar conditions it is profitable the creation of mini-industries for processing fruits and vegetables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A trio of peach cultivars, Crimson Joy, Liberty Joy, and Rich Joy, have been recently released by the US Department of Agriculture breeding program at Byron, GA. They ripen at Byron in early to mid-June, late June to early July, and mid-July, respectively. Additional data on their fruit development are needed to understand the ripening process and optimize harvest timing. This study was designed to measure and compare characteristics of ripening fruit harvested weekly from the three Joy cultivars in two trial orchards. Fruit characteristics were significantly different among the three cultivars, the trial locations, and the harvest weeks. Difference in the five size-related characteristics (fruit weight, flesh weight, pit weight, and equatorial and polar diameters) and soluble solid content (SSC) were statistically significant among the three cultivars. 'Crimson Joy' had the smallest averages in the sizerelated characteristics and 'Rich Joy' fruit had the largest. 'Liberty Joy' had the firmest fruit and least juice volume and blush rating value at maturation. Trees in the commercial block produced larger fruit than those in the Byron research block. Differences among the harvests were statistically significant for all the fruit characteristics, suggesting that the peach fruit experienced dramatic changes as ripening progressed. The weights and diameters, juice volumes, and SSC continued to increase in the harvests although with reduced firmness. Correlation coefficients varied greatly between these fruit characteristics along with R² and P values. The highest positive correlations were observed among fruit weight, equatorial diameter, polar diameter, and flesh weight. Pit weight was positively correlated with them to a lesser extent. Firmness showed substantial negative correlations with several characteristics, including three weights, two diameters, juice volume, SSC, and blush rating value. SSC and titratable acidity were also negatively correlated. The data confirmed that peach fruit continued to size while ripening and should be useful to determine appropriate harvest timing, which could differ for commercial packing vs. roadside sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research project EGON explored a new organizational approach in the fruit sector that builds upon common ownership and collective management: commons-based organic fruit breeding. As agricultural and breeding actors initiated the writing of the research proposal, they became involved on equal footing in the joint problem framing and design of the research project from the very start. In this Design Report, we explore contextual factors in the co-design and co-production phase and their influence on the research process, as well as scientific and societal effects. Based on interviews with scientific and practitioner partners in the consortium, we find that early and continuous professional networking with practitioners is essential for fruitful transdisciplinary research processes. Also, joint activities like common excursions, seminars, and joint conference presentations have been valuable to develop mutual understanding, curiosity, and trust. What turned out to be crucial for the commons-based approach of the project were adequate funding opportunities for practitioners in systematic and scientifically supported breeding processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blackberries have a short post-harvest conservation period, making it necessary to optimize harvest and storage conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of refrigerated storage and maturation stage on the physicochemical quality of 'BRS Cainguá' blackberries, produced in an organic system. Blackberries from an experimental orchard, were harvested at three ripeness stages (RS), with RS1 being fruits with 100% red skin; RS2 skin 50% red and 50% black; and EM3 100% black skin. The samples were stored in a cold chamber at 4±0.5ºC and 90-95% RH for 12 days. The evaluations were carried out after 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 days of storage, for: weight loss (WL), soluble solids (SS), pH, titratable acidity (TA), ratio (SS/TA) and color parameters. Blackberries harvested in RS3 had the highest SS content, lowest TA and the highest SS/TA ratio and pH. During storage, TA and WL showed decreasing and increasing linear responses, respectively, regardless of the RS of the fruits. Harvesting based on the skin color of 'BRS Cainguá' blackberries influences the physicochemical quality and postharvest conservation. Fruits harvested with 100% black skin, have the best quality and are the most suitable for subsequent refrigerated storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated how increasing temperature affects tomato fruit physicochemical traits and looked for genetic variability to help maintain fruit quality in the context of climate change. High temperature (HT: +3 °C) was applied at four fruit developmental stages, from anthesis and 15, 30 or 45 days after anthesis until ripening to three genotypes, a commercial cultivar (Money Maker, "MM") and two genotypes likely more tolerant to HT (Campeche 40 "C40", a landrace from a warm, humid region, and a hybrid Chapingo F1, "F1", resulting from crossbreeding landraces tolerant to high temperature). Increasing average diurnal temperature (from 27.0 to 29.9) reduced fruit firmness and size and affected fruit composition according to genotype. Sugar and acid contents were highly impacted in MM and C40 fruits, especially when HT was applied during the rapid fruit growth period. The application of HT at different fruit developmental stages revealed that HT could enhance acid accumulation and degradation (rate and/or duration), resulting in different effects on fruit acidity between genotypes. The F1 genotype appeared to be more adapted to HT, producing larger fruits with higher sugar, lower acid and increased vitamin C and calcium content. These results provide interesting directions for breeding programs that want to maintain future tomato fruit yields and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Tomatoes of different types and cultivars are grown in different parts of the world. Accordingly, the phenological, pomological and biochemical characteristics of these types and cultivars may differ from each other, and therefore their ripening behaviours may also differ. The present study aimed to determine the respiration rate and ethylene production of twelve commonly grown cultivars in Turkey at harvest and during the ripening stage. The fruits were harvested at the mature green stage and categorized according to their size as small, medium and large‐fruited cultivars. RESULTS: At harvest time, the highest respiration rate was determined from 'Moda' (small‐fruited) cultivar and the lowest was from 'Elips' (medium‐fruited). The highest ethylene production was determined from 'Sarikiz' (small‐fruited) and the lowest was from 'Alberty' (large‐fruited). All tomato cultivars examined in the study showed climacteric respiration behavior during the ripening, and it was determined that small‐fruited types had a higher respiration rate and ethylene production compared to medium and large‐fruited ones. 'Sarikiz' (small‐fruited) had the highest climacteric peak and 'Gulpembe' (large‐fruited) had the lowest. Moreover, it was determined that the respiration rate of small‐fruited cultivars were 5.01‐fold higher compared to other cultivars and this type of cultivars produced 4.19‐fold higher ethylene compared to big‐fruited cultivars at harvest. Medium‐fruited tomatoes had 1.90‐fold higher respiration rate and 1.64‐fold ethylene production compared to big‐fruited tomatoes. CONCLUSION: It was determined that fruit size and respiration rate were related independently of the cultivars, although there was no relationship between fruit size and ethylene production. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Argan tree (Argania spinosa (L.) (Skeels)) is a woody species endemic to Algeria (Tindouf region mostly) and Morocco. It is a plant species of oleo-agro-sylvo-pastoral and ecological importance as it contributes to the fight against desertification and climate change. Moreover, the seed is used for extracting oil, which has high dietic and cosmetic qualities. In this work, the fruit harvest period and Argania spinosa productivity are related to the phenological process of flowering and fruiting. Our results show that the experimental argan trees of Mostaganem bloom late to be pollinated in the spring and remain dormant throughout the summer, in contrast to the endemic Tindouf trees that bloom early in September, bear fruit and ripen in the same season. This explains why that the fruits of the Tindouf region are the richest compared to the fruits of the other two regions. Our study shows that the pulp always contains more than almonds, as the oil was extracted and analyzed, the pulp is the fraction richest in phenols, while almond is the poorest fraction (3.43 ± 0.72 mg/g, 1.34 ± 0.03 mg/g), the same thing goes for the total flavonoid content (9 ± 0.5 mg/g, 2.83 ± 0.14 mg/g). The greatest activity was recorded in the fruits of Tindouf. As for the components of the fruit, the highest activity was recorded in the pulps then the almonds and the lowest in the oil (502 ± 11.42 g, 216 ± 8.43 g, 174 ± 3.61 g), respectively. Concerning primary metabolites, the fruit is rich (the almond is rich in proteins, the pulp is rich in sugar and the oil is rich in lipids). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pitahaya (Hylocereus spp.) has been placed successfully in the global fruit market due to its exotic appearance and pleasant flavor; however, its short postharvest life has limited its marketing in national and international markets. The postharvest life and final quality of fruits depend on the state of maturity in which the fruit is harvested, as well on the storage conditions. The aim of this study was to assess the postharvest behavior of pitahaya fruits (H. ocamponis) harvested during two states of maturity (pre-consumer and consumption maturity), stored at 6 ± 1 °C and 22 ± 3 °C for 24 d. The color, firmness, epicarp thickness, weight loss, soluble solids, total soluble sugars, betalains, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity showed significant changes during the storage period. The preserved fruits at room temperature maintained their firmness and color of the epicarp, content of soluble solids, soluble sugars and betalains during 9 d of storage, but from the 16th d, they showed rottenness and degradation of epicarp betalains. In contrast, the stored fruits in refrigeration presented a lower weight loss, greater firmness, and epicarp thickness, reaching 24 d of shelf life. The antioxidant activity was greater in the pulp of the stored fruits at 22 °C, due to an apparent higher betalains concentration associated with greater water loss in the fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Biology is the property of Instituto Internacional de Ecologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Reports show that phytohormone abscisic acid (ABA) is involved in reducing zucchini postharvest chilling injury. During the storage of harvested fruit at low temperatures, chilling injury symptoms were associated with cell damage through the production of reactive oxygen species. In this work, we have studied the importance of different non-enzymatic antioxidants on tolerance to cold stress in zucchini fruit treated with ABA. The application of ABA increases the antioxidant capacity of zucchini fruit during storage through the accumulation of ascorbate, carotenoids and polyphenolic compounds. The quantification of specific phenols was performed by UPLC/MS-MS, observing that exogenous ABA mainly activated the production of flavonoids. The rise in all these non-enzymatic antioxidants due to ABA correlates with a reduction in oxidative stress in treated fruit during cold stress. The results showed that the ABA mainly induces antioxidant metabolism during the first day of exposure to low temperatures, and this response is key to avoiding the occurrence of chilling injury. This work suggests an important protective role of non-enzymatic antioxidants and polyphenolic metabolism in the prevention of chilling injury in zucchini fruit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid, stable, and undamaged picking of small-sized spherical fruits are one of the key technologies to improve the level of intelligent picking robots and reduce grading operations. Cherry tomatoes were selected as the research object in this work. Picking strategies of two-stage "Holding-Rotating" and finger-end grasping were determined. The end-effector was designed to separate the fruit from the stalk based on the linear motion of the constraint part and the rotating gripper. This work first studied the human hand-grasping of cherry tomatoes and designed the fingers with sinusoidal characteristics. The mathematical model of a single finger of the gripper was established. The structural parameters of the gripper were determined to meet the requirements of the grabbing range from 0 to 61.6 mm. Based on the simulation model, the constraint part was set to 6 speeds, and the fruit sizes were set to 20 mm, 30 mm, and 40 mm, respectively. When the speed was 0.08m/s, the results showed that the grabbing time was 0.5381 s, 0.387 s, and 0.2761 s, respectively, and the maximum grabbing force was 0.9717 N, 3.5077 N, and 4.0003 N now of clamping, respectively. It met the picking requirements of high speed and low loss. The criterions of two-index stability and undamaged were proposed, including the grasping index of the fixed value and the slip detection of variance to mean ratio. Therefore, the control strategy and algorithm based on two-stage and two-index for rapid, stable, and non-destructive harvesting of small fruit were proposed. The results of the picking experiment for seventy-two cherry tomatoes showed that the picking success rate was 95.82%, the average picking time was 4.86 s, the picking damage rate was 2.90%, the browning rate was 2.90% in 72 h, and the wrinkling rate was 1.49% in 72 h, which can meet the actual small spherical fruit picking requirements. The research will provide an idea for the flexible end-effectors with humanoid grasp function and provides a theoretical reference for small spherical fruit picking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Known being the increasing demand for ecological fruits, both at national level and on international markets, the apple cultivated in the ecological system in Romania can bring economic and social benefits. The orientation towards apple cultivars with genetic resistance to diseases will be gradually imposed, especially in the case of apple, being the main factor in obtaining ecological productions. The value of the ecological apples, as dessert fruits, depends directly on the following physico-chemical characteristics: size (weight and caliber), content of fruit in soluble solids and acids (specially malic acid), firmness and the color of the epidermis. This work aims to quantify the quality elements of the fruits at the maturity of harvesting for 12 apple cultivars, of different origin (6 with Romanian origin and 6 foreign cultivars), located in a field trial of RIFG Pitești, Romania, managed in ecological system. The preliminary results registered at the level of 2022 show that the fruits size varied from 144.26 g ('Rubinola' cv.) to 306.8 g ('Orion' cv.), and the fruit caliber 71.62 mm ('Crimson Crisp' cv.) to 92.13 mm ('Orion' cv.). The cultivars 'Rumina', 'Topaz' and 'Orion' were noted for the high content of soluble solids (over 14%). 'Rubinola' cv. was noted by the high pH of fruits (4.02) and high acid content (0.88% malic acid). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]