Fitting of Forelle maturity and fruit quality data on climatic model for prediction of harvest maturity for optimum eating quality

Forelle was harvested in the three areas on a bi-weekly basis as planned for three seasons with a high success rate.  Fruit were then stored for different periods and evaluated after 1, 7 and 11 days shelf life. We found mealiness and astringency each season and data will be analysed for trends later in this year.  Pre-harvest analyses of data were done on the rate of change of all maturity parameters and interpretations will continue after the post harvest analyses are finished during 2010.  Preliminary pre-harvest results show flesh firmness was changing at a higher rate than all the other variables, and this was comparative to rate of change in background colour. Furthermore, these two variables seemed to be more reliable and could be fitted in a linear model used to predict harvest maturity, since they also showed a strong linear relationship to days after full bloom as explained by the high R² values in the linear regression analysis. Data for total soluble solids and titratable acidity showed some inconsistency, hence these parameters may need to be coupled with other maturity indices in order to increase their precision when predicting optimum maturity.  We were able to obtain a MSc.Agric. student that was involved in the final year’s field work and is now concentrating on the final report.