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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Kearneysville, West Virginia » Appalachian Fruit Research Laboratory » Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #279831
Title: Impact bruise assessment of southern highbush blueberry

Author
item Takeda, Fumiomi
item KREWER, G - University Of Georgia
item LI, C - University Of Georgia
item YU, P - University Of Georgia
item OLMSTEAD, J - University Of Florida

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/20/2012
Publication Date: 7/15/2012
Citation: Takeda, F., Krewer, G., Li, C., Yu, P., Olmstead, J. 2012. Impact bruise assessment of southern highbush blueberry [abstract]. ASHS Annual Conference Program. p. 76.

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Southern highbush blueberries (Vaccinium darrowi ' V. corymbosum) are currently mostly hand harvested for the fresh market. Hand harvesting of blueberry is labor intensive (over 1,100 h/ha) and costly. With the uncertainty of labor availability in the near future, efforts are under way to develop “crispy” genotypes that will develop less bruising after impact with hard surfaces and improve mechanical harvest technologies to eliminate or minimize bruising of the fruit that occur during machine harvesting. In this study, the fruit of ‘Farthing’, ‘Scintilla’, ‘Sweetcrisp’, and selection FL05-528 was assessed for bruise damage after a 0.5- or 1.0-m drop on either plastic or cushioned contact surface one and seven days later. The drop tests showed that a conventional-flesh genotype (‘Scintilla’) was more susceptible to bruising than the crispy-flesh genotypes (‘Farthing’, ‘Sweetcrisp', and FL05-528) when blueberries were dropped onto plastic contact surface. When the contact surface was cushioned with ‘NoBruze’ foam sheet, bruise incidence was significantly reduced for all four genotypes. The fruit of all four genotypes dropped from 1.0 m height developed more bruise damage than from 0.5 m height. The assessment of impact bruise is a valuable decision support to the blueberry industry that should be used for selecting machine harvestable southern highbush blueberry genotypes and for improving mechanical harvesting technologies.