Use of Portable Devices and an Innovative and Non-Destructive Index for In-Field Monitoring of Olive Fruit Ripeness

A new non-destructive index of absorbance difference (I-AD), calculated with different wavelengths as references, near the chlorophyll absorbance peak or that for anthocyanin, has been used to determine the fruit ripening of several fruit species using portable devices such as Standard DA-Meter((R)) and Kiwi-Meter((R)). In this study, for the first time, the application of the I-AD was evaluated on single, intact olives of the Leccino cultivar, as a single non-destructive maturity index to follow ripening in the field, directly on the tree. The I-AD determined by both devices was found to be useful for monitoring the olive ripening, however, better performance was achieved with the Kiwi-Meter((R)). In fact, the I-AD determined by this device was more effective at measuring all the studied olive ripening parameters in the calibration and validation datasets with acceptable accuracy. Specifically, better performance of the I-DA by Kiwi-Meter((R)) was observed in estimation of the color index (R-2 = 0.817, DRMSEC = 0.404 and RPIQ = 3.863 for calibration and R-2 = 0.752, DRMSECV = 0.574 and RPIQ = 3.244 for validation), confirming its potential for evaluating the degree of olive ripeness. This novel index has significant applicative possibilities, since it would allow rapid, on-site screening of the best harvesting time to improve the olive production in terms of both yield and quality.