Quality Prediction of pome fruit

The seasonal variation in the internal quality of our pome fruit has become a major concern for growers as well as exporters and marketers during the past few years, due to the demand for top quality fruit and competition from our competitors. Exporters and marketers need to be informed timeously of expected picking dates and internal quality of our fruit to adapt sell-by dates and marketing strategies.  Accurate information is essential to market fruit at the best possible prices and to meet the requirements of supermarkets. A number of exporters are already requiring records of maturity indices from their suppliers and growers will need to have their fruit monitored and be responsible should the requirements not be met. Based on these demands, the object of the study was (a) to relate the seasonal variation in internal quality to climatic and soil conditions and (b) to develop a model which can be used for an early comparison of maturity indices (TSS, starch & firmness) for the current season with any of the previous seasons