Keeping Quality of Strawberry Batches

Post-harvest life of strawberries is largely limited by Botrytis cinerea infection. It is assumed that there are two factors influencing the batch keeping quality: the botrytis pressure and the resistance of the strawberry against infection. The latter factor will be discussed here. A model is presented that describes the development of red colour and anti-fungal function of individual strawberries over time. The model was fitted to colour data from strawberries batches from the same growing conditions stored per batch at 5, 10 or 16 °C after harvest. Batches are considered to be all strawberries from one harvest. Spoilage per batch was recorded during storage. The fitted initial spoilage per batch was found to relate to the fitted amount of precursor of both the colour and the anti-fungal compounds. Batch keeping quality could be predicted from the initial batch colour distributions. An explanation for the predictive ability of the model without having to use a term describing the pH is presented from pigment HPLC measurements.