Avocado Maturity Studies: a Discussion of Possible Applications of Various Physical Measurements to Non- Destructive Testing

A substantial amount of data has now been collected on the biochemical behavior of maturing avocados in regard to composition and sugar metabolism. Such studies still indicate that improved maturity indices might be developed with biochemical tests but such tests would, of necessity, be destructive of the fruit tested. A procedure which would not require the loss of the sample being tested would be of tremendously greater value than a destructive test. It is impossible to apply any destructive procedure to a large number of fruits to obtain a true index of the range of maturity of a given shipment since each test would require a corresponding loss in fruit sale. A non-injurious physical test, on the other hand, might be applied to a relatively large number of fruits so as to obtain a realistic evaluation of the maturity of a given lot and it would still be possible to market all the fruit tested. In its ultimate development, it might be possible to utilize a properly conceived physical test on a packing line in such a way that all the fruit packed would be tested for maturity and automatically rejected if found to be substandard.