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Non-destructive VIS and NIR spectrometry was used for non-destructive determination of peel pigments and peel carbohydrates of Grapefruit aimed at studying the potential in peel maturity prediction.

Peel maturity and the appearance of chilling injury are highly correlated in grapefruit. Consequently, the present study addresses detection of fruit sensitivity to chilling injury before shipment.

White grapefruits (n=98) were scanned with a portable diode-array spectrometer working in the visible and very near infrared wavelength range from 400 to 1100 nm and a scanning dual-beam laboratory instrument gathering the wavelength range from 1100 to 1500 nm and destructively analysed afterwards. Chlorophyll and carotinoid contents in the flavedo were predicted by means of specific indices red-edge, Tr698/Tr760 and NDVI with correlation coefficients of determination R=0.67, R=0.82, R=0.81, respectively. However, these results were obtain for non-patchy fruits, which cannot be expected in practice.

Using partial least square (PLS) calibration models for spectral recordings (400-1500nm) gave multivariate correlation coefficients of determination R=0.65, R=0.84, R=0.74 for sucrose, glucose and fructose [g kg-1] regarding the flavedo of the fruit peel.

Results point out the feasibility of NIR spectral analysis to predict the fruit peel maturity nondestructively. Thus, NIR may be a valuable tool to non-destructively investigate the potential susceptibility to chilling injury.