Evaluation of Late-Maturing Peach and Nectarine Fruit Quality by Chemical, Physical, and Sensory Determinations

Vittorio Farina, Riccardo Lo Bianco and Agata Mazzaglia
Additional contact information
Vittorio Farina: Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences. Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Riccardo Lo Bianco: Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences. Università degli Studi di Palermo, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Agata Mazzaglia: Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Università degli Studi di Catania, 95131 Catania, Italy

Agriculture, 2019, vol. 9, issue 9, 1-11

Abstract: In this work, both analytical and sensory determinations were carried out to evaluate the quality of yellow (‘Summerset‘, ‘Tardiva 2000‘, ‘Fairtime’, ‘Guglielmina’) and white flesh (‘Daniela’) late-ripening peach and nectarine (‘California’ and ‘Fairlane’) cultivars. Analytical measurements included weight, diameter, soluble solid content, titratable acidity, pH, and peel color. To describe and quantify the peach and nectarine sensory profile, a panel of 10 judges generated 15 descriptors. According to univariate analysis of fruit quality attributes, ‘Fairtime’, ‘Summerset, ‘Daniela’, and ‘California’ produced large and attractive fruits with an extensive red peel color. On the other hand, ‘Guglielmina’, ‘Daniela’, ‘Tardiva 2000’, and ‘Fairlane’ produced superior quality fruit in terms of soluble solids, titratable acidity, sweetness, and flavor. The white flesh peach ‘Daniela’ produced fruits with the best balance between external and internal quality. Cluster analysis on standardized component coordinates from biplot analysis allowed for the identification of two main groups. One group included ‘Daniela’, ‘Guglielmin’, ‘Tardiva 2000’, and ‘Fairlane’, along with attributes that are more indicative of ripe fruit such as soluble solids, sweetness, sugar/acid, juiciness, ground color index, peel color uniformity, flesh color intensity, mealiness, peach odor and flavor, and flower odor and flavor. The other group included ‘Summerset’, ‘Fairtime’, and ‘California’ along with weight, diameter, consistency, flesh firmness, percentage of cover color, bitterness, titratable acidity, sour odor and flavor, and grassy odor and flavor. The dual approach adopted in this study indicates that cultivars with large and attractive fruits are often lacking real eating quality. This poses serious doubts on the real value of exterior appearance for recognizing high-quality peaches and nectarines.

Keywords: flavor; flesh firmness; juice acidity; biplot analysis; panel test; peel color; Prunus persica; sweetness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/9/189/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/9/9/189/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:9:y:2019:i:9:p:189-:d:263759

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().