FEASIBILITY STUDIES INTO NIR TECHNIQUE FOR MEASUREMENT OF INTERNAL QUALITY OF SOME TROPICAL FRUITS

Okinawa Prefecture is located in the southernmost part of Japan and has a subtropical climate. A lot of tropical fruits such as pineapples, mangoes and papayas are produced. Pineapples were mainly supplied to the canning industry. Since April 1990, the Japanese Government released the foreign trade restriction of canned pineapples and pineapple juice in accordance with GATT. Okinawan Farmers have been expanding the customers from the processing industry to the fresh market. During the recent year, fully mature, high quality pineapples which have 15 Brix in sugar content are produced in green houses on Okinawa. Prices are 2 to 3 times those of the imported pineapples. At present, they are sorted manually, and this sorting might cause the pineapples to lose their reputation. NIR applied fruit sorters have been developed and operated for apples and peaches in Japan . NIR applied tests were carried out to consider the feasibility into the NIR technique for measurement of the NIR a alysis suggests adequate correlations between sugar content and NIR reflectance properties of pineapples and mangoes.