Non-Destructive PTR-ToF-MS Profiling of Red Delicious and Granny Smith Apple Volatilomes During Ripening

Alessia Panarese (), Brian Farneti, Angelo Zanella and Iuliia Khomenko
Additional contact information
Alessia Panarese: Research Group Storage and Postharvest Biology, Research Centre Laimburg, 39040 Ora, Italy
Brian Farneti: Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Via E. Mach 1, 38098 S. Michele all’Adige, Italy
Angelo Zanella: Research Group Storage and Postharvest Biology, Research Centre Laimburg, 39040 Ora, Italy
Iuliia Khomenko: Research and Innovation Centre, Fondazione Edmund Mach, Via E. Mach 1, 38098 S. Michele all’Adige, Italy

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-11

Abstract: The optimal harvest date (OHD) for the long-term storage of apple fruits is of the utmost importance, not only for maintaining high quality levels, but also because the ripening stage, regulated by the autocatalytic activity of the internal ethylene concentration, greatly affects the VOCs’ synthesis. During apple ripening, chemical compounds undergo changes that affect the fruit’s overall quality, particularly its aromatic profile. Three main classes of organic molecules—aldehydes, alcohols, and esters—play a key role in these modifications. This study investigated the potential of proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS) for the rapid, non-destructive monitoring of VOC profiles in ‘Red Delicious’ and ‘Granny Smith’ apples over a 7-week shelf-life period across three harvest dates with different ripening stages. More than 300 mass peaks in the PTR-ToF-MS spectra of the apple headspace were detected. A total of 127 of them were considered to be relevant for further analysis. Furthermore, respiration rate and I AD index were used for the non-destructive assessment of the ripening progress during the 7 weeks of shelf-life and for integrating the VOC results.

Keywords: apple ripening; proton transfer reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometry; volatile organic compounds; DA-meter; CO 2 production (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: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/6/638/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/6/638/ (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:15:y:2025:i:6:p:638-:d:1614443

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 ().