DA Meter to measure the chlorophyll's content in a fruit

• The DA-Meter - is an instrument that, by means of its absorbency properties, allows to measure the chlorophyll's content in a fruit.
• The content in chlorophyll in a fruit is a precise index of a fruit's ripening state.
• Thus, the DA-Meter allows to know the ripeness state, and the way it works does not depend on the season’s weather conditions, a factor which influences other kinds of measurement such as the brix index.

DA INDEX:

• In fruit and vegetables, establishing the optimal harvest time is a crucial issue, since fruit shelf-life potential and quality are closely related to the ripening stage at the harvest. In cold store it is very importants to establish maturity changes as well.
• The DA index, measured with the DA-Meter, is useful at many stages in the production and consumption's cycle of fruit. As a matter of fact, it can be used:
  • 1) by the farmer, in order to optimize the trees pruning, to obtain a very homogeneous product and, as a result, to reduce the number of picking stages;
  • 2) by the farmer, during the harvest-time, in order to identify the best moment for the picking;
  • 3) in the cold rooms, in order to know the maturation state of the stored fruit;
  • 4) in the packing-house, the DA-Meter has been used to select the correct fruit for different marketing destinations (less ripe fruit for distant markets, riper
  • fruit for local market).
  • 5) at the retailer, in order to buy products at the intended maturation level and in order to select the most ripened product for selling.
• The DA-Meter is a very promising tool both for practical and scientific applications, since it allows to monitor on-tree fruit ripening (as well on the same fruit):
  • as a matter of fact, decreasing index ranges correspond to increasingly advanced stages of the ripening process, as showed by the differences in ethylene
  • emissions, and by the quality traits of fruit with different DA values.

DA METERS MODELS:

• 53500 DA Meter - Version for pome fruits, stone fruits, mango, etc.;
• 53501 DA Meter - Specific version for Kiwi;
• 53502 DA Meter - Specific version for cherries.