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ARS Home » Pacific West Area » Corvallis, Oregon » Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #393661
Research Project: Genetic Improvement of Blackberry, Red and Black Raspberry, Blueberry, and Strawberry

Location: Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit

Title: A comparison of two firmness-testing machines for measuring blueberry firmness and size

Author
item Luby, Claire
item DOANE, SARAH - Oregon State University
item Mackey, Theodore - Ted
item YANG, WEI - Oregon State University

Submitted to: HortTechnology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 11/15/2022
Publication Date: 2/1/2023
Citation: Luby, C.H., Doane, S., Mackey, T.A., Yang, W. 2023. A comparison of two firmness-testing machines for measuring blueberry firmness and size. HortTechnology. 33(1):98-102. https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH05060-22.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH05060-22

Interpretive Summary: For this study, we compared two machines that test firmness in blueberry fruits, the FruitFirm 1000 and the FirmTech II. The FirmTech II has been used as a standard machine to measure fruit firmness for the past 30 years. The FruitFirm 1000 uses the same type of measurement to measure firmness but is a newer machine. There is interest from blueberry growers and packers about whether this new machine is comparable to the older machine. We found that, in general, there were slight differences in firmness and size measurements from each machine, but that measurements were consistent across the two machines. This suggest that we could use one machine to predict the measurements taken on the other machine.

Technical Abstract: Firmness is an important fruit quality trait in blueberry. Many growers and packers rely on machines for measuring firmness right after harvest and after cold storage of fresh fruit. In this study, we compared compression firmness measurements, determined a force-deformation value, of two machines, the FirmTech II and the FruitFirm 1000. The FirmTech II has been in use for the past 30 years. The FruitFirm 1000 has been on the market for the past 5 years. We compared fruit firmness and size measurements for several commercial cultivars and breeding accessions measured by both machines at harvest and 2 weeks post-harvest. In general, we found that there were slight differences in fruit firmness and size measurements between the two machines, but that measurements were generally consistent across the machines. Our study suggests that, in general, we could use one machine to predict the measurements taken on the other machine.