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In Colombia, blackberry (Rubus spp.) is one of the crops with the most significant geographic coverage, and the ecotype “Castilla” (Rubus glaucus) is the most extensively commercialized. Despite the importance of the crop, there are no registered varieties or hybrids specifically adapted to the diverse growing conditions of the country’s various production areas. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and select advanced genotypes of Castilla blackberry based on yield attributes and physicochemical quality of the fruits. Data from five genotypes and one regional check were recorded in the municipality of Silvania, Cundinamarca, during 2022 and 2023. The yield traits, including the number of fruits per kg and the weight of the fruits harvested, were evaluated, as well as the physicochemical variables: fruit diameter, fruit weight, firmness, acidity, total soluble solids, pH, juice and pulp weights, and maturity index. The data were statistically processed using a generalized linear model, principal component and cluster analysis, and Ward’s minimum variance clustering method. A selection index based on the traits of production, total soluble solids, fruit weight, and firmness, relevant to the crop, was used. Significant differences were observed between genotypes for the yield traits, total soluble solids, pH, acidity, and maturity index. The results suggested that genotypes G1, G4, and G3 were outstanding in terms of yield and fruit quality. However, genotype G1 led the index selection, outperforming the other genotypes under evaluation. En Colombia, la mora (Rubus spp.) es uno de los cultivos con mayor cobertura geográfica, siendo el ecotipo \"Castilla\" (Rubus glaucus) el más comercializado. Pese a la importancia del cultivo, no hay registro de variedades o híbridos específicamente adaptados a las diversas condiciones de crecimiento de las diferentes zonas productoras del país. El propósito de este trabajo fue evaluar y seleccionar genotipos avanzados de mora de Castilla por atributos de rendimiento y calidad fisicoquímica de fruto. Se registraron datos de cinco genotipos y un testigo regional en Silvania, Cundinamarca, durante los años 2022 y 2023. Se evaluaron los atributos de rendimiento: número de frutos por kg y peso de los frutos cosechados, así como las variables fisicoquímicas: diámetros de fruta, peso de fruto, firmeza, acidez, contenido de sólidos solubles totales, pH, pesos de jugo y pulpa, e índice de madurez. Los datos fueron estadísticamente procesados mediante un modelo lineal generalizado, análisis de componentes principales y conglomerados, y el método de agrupamiento de varianza mínima de Ward. Se usó un índice de selección basado en las características: producción, sólidos solubles totales, peso de fruto y firmeza, relevantes para el cultivo. Se observaron diferencias significativas entre los genotipos para las características de rendimiento, sólidos solubles totales, pH, acidez e índice de madurez. Los resultados sugirieron que los genotipos G1, G4 y G3 fueron los sobresalientes en rendimiento y calidad de fruto. Sin embargo, el genotipo G1 lideró la selección por el índice, superando a los otros genotipos en evaluación.

Honey is one of the most valuable food products, which, in addition to its nutritional value, also has therapeutic properties. In our study, the physicochemical (Brix, viscosity, free acid content, pH, moisture, diastase activity, 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), proline content, sugars content, and reducing sugars content) and microbial (mold and yeast content) characteristics and 15 element contents (As, Cd, K, Al, Pb, Hg, Ba, Ni, Na, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, and Se) of the samples were evaluated. Among the essential elements, the maximum mean was related to K (630 ± 50.8 mg/kg), and the minimum mean was related to Se that was lower than the limit of detection. Also, among all toxic elements, the maximum mean was related to Ni (234 ± 54.7 µg/kg), and the minimum mean was related to Hg that was lower than the limit of detection. Furthermore, the mean of free acidity, pH, °Brix, moisture, diastase content, HMF, and proline content was 35.4 ± 1.27 meq/kg, 4.61 ± 0.21, 82.2 ± 3.08, 16.3 ± 0.33%, 9.10 ± 1.14 DN, 21.1 ± 2.65 mg/kg, and 482 ± 18.1 mg/kg, respectively. Also, the mean percentage of fructose, glucose, and sucrose was 32.4 ± 1.07% (27.5–40.0%), 27.2 ± 0.85% (23.5–31.7%), and 2.28 ± 0.70% (0.72–4.11%), respectively. Finally, the mean of mold and yeast in all samples was 14.2 ± 0.37 CFU/g. Also, the principal component analysis and heat map allowed us to determine a more accurate distinction between the physicochemical characteristics of bee honey. The results of our findings showed that in most cases, the results obtained were within the standard range, which indicates the good quality of Iranian honeys.

Quality assessment of fruits, vegetables, or beverages involves classifying the products according to the quality traits such as, appearance, texture, flavor, sugar content. The measurement of sugar content, or Brix, as it is commonly known, is an essential part of the quality analysis of the agricultural products and alcoholic beverages. The Brix monitoring of fruit and vegetables by destructive methods includes sensory assessment involving sensory panels, instruments such as refractometer, hydrometer, and liquid chromatography. However, these techniques are manual, time-consuming, and most importantly, the fruits or vegetables are damaged during testing. On the other hand, the traditional sample-based methods involve manual sample collection of the liquid from the tank in fruit/vegetable juice making and in wineries or breweries. Labour ineffectiveness can be a significant drawback of such methods. This review presents recent developments in different destructive and nondestructive Brix measurement techniques focused on fruits, vegetables, and beverages. It is concluded that while there exist a variety of methods and instruments for Brix measurement, traits such as promptness and low cost of analysis, minimal sample preparation, and environmental friendliness are still among the prime requirements of the industry.

Although it is known that fruit products are rich sources of natural bioactive compounds, information on the nutritional value of their waste parts is scarce. The objective was to characterize the edible (juice and pulp) and waste (peel and seeds) parts of Cantaloupe melon ( Cucumis melon L. var. reticulatus ) in terms of some physicochemical characteristics, bioactive compounds and total antioxidant activity. Juice, pulp, peel and seeds represent 42, 23, 25 and 7% of total weight, respectively. Juice and pulp presented identical profiles in terms of physicochemical characteristics, bioactive compounds and antioxidant activity. They contributed to the majority of the overall content of carotenoids (80%) and vitamin C (84%) in Cantaloupe . Peel and seeds had the highest concentrations of potassium, being seeds the richest portion (7.08 ± 0.16 mg/g). Seeds had also the significantly highest total phenolics concentration (229.13 ± 20.92 µg/g), antioxidant activity (653.67 ± 169.20 µg/g), and soluble solids content (11.79 ± 0.90 °Brix). Peel stood out by the presence of chlorophylls. Since waste parts of Cantaloupe melon represent around 32% of total weight, their valorization is a challenge and strategies to improve ways of re-using them should be developed.

Citriculture is a primary agricultural product in Morocco, where water scarcity is a significant challenge exacerbated by climate change. This four-year study investigated the impact of deficit (50% of crop evapotranspiration, ET c ) and excessive (150% ET c , and 200% ET c ) irrigation on Esbal clementine quality in the Souss-Massa region of Morocco. Four irrigation treatments (50%, 100%, 150%, and 200% ET c ) were applied to evaluate their influence on fruit size, acidity, and Brix degree, which measures the dissolved sugar content in a liquid solution. Results indicate that excessive irrigation (200% ET c ) increased fruit size by 108% but decreased the Brix degree by 46%. Conversely, deficit irrigation (50% ET c ) led to a smaller fruit size, yet maintained higher Brix values. Fruit acidity remained relatively stable across treatments, with values ranging from 2.53% in 2019 to 1.54% in 2022 under deficit irrigation (50% ET c ) and showing no significant differences between deficit and excessive irrigation strategies. These findings contribute to understanding the balance between water use and fruit quality, informing sustainable irrigation strategies for citrus production in water-scarce regions.

Exported fresh intact pineapples must fulfill the minimum internal quality requirement of 12 degree brix. Even though near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic approaches are promising to non-destructively and rapidly assess the internal quality of intact pineapples, these approaches involve expensive and complex NIR spectroscopic instrumentation. Thus, this research evaluates the performance of a proposed pre-dispersive NIR light sensing approach in non-destructively classifying the Brix of pineapples using K-fold cross-validation, holdout validation, and sensitive analysis. First, the proposed pre-dispersive NIR sensing device that consisted of a light sensing element and five NIR light emitting diodes with peak wavelengths of 780, 850, 870, 910, and 940 nm, respectively, was developed. After that, the diffuse reflectance NIR light of intact pineapples was non-destructively acquired using the developed NIR sensing device before their Brix values were conventionally measured using a digital refractometer. Next, an artificial neural network (ANN) was trained and optimized to classify the Brix values of pineapples using the acquired NIR light. The results of the sensitivity analysis showed that either one wavelength that was near to the water absorbance or chlorophyll band was redundant in the classification. The performance of the trained ANN was tested using new pineapples with the optimal classification accuracy of 80.56%. This indicates that the proposed pre-dispersive NIR light sensing approach coupled with the ANN is promising to be an alternative to non-destructively classifying the internal quality of fruits.

Abstract Background Brix refractometry can be used to assess colostral immunoglobulin G (IgG) concentration, but studies identifying Brix percentages to detect high- and low-IgG colostrum are lacking for beef cows and interlaboratory agreement is unknown. Objectives Evaluate Brix refractometer performance and interlaboratory agreement for assessing beef cow colostrum IgG concentration, including determination of thresholds to identify colostrum containing IgG concentrations <100 g/L and ≥150 g/L. Animals Beef cows (n = 416) from 11 cow-calf operations in Alberta, Canada. Methods Colostral IgG concentrations were measured using radial immunodiffusion (RID) and estimated by Brix refractometry for this retrospective study. Spearman correlation coefficients were assessed between RID and Brix refractometry. Likelihood ratios and misclassification cost-term analysis were used to determine optimal Brix percentages for detecting colostrum containing IgG concentrations <100 g/L and ≥150 g/L. Concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) and Bland-Altman analyses were performed for Brix percentages obtained at 3 different laboratories. Results Brix percentages obtained at 3 laboratories were positively correlated with IgG results (r = 0.72, 0.68, and 0.76, respectively). Colostrum Brix percentages of <24% and ≥30% were optimal for indicating IgG concentrations of <100 g/L and ≥150 g/L, respectively. Interlaboratory agreement was substantial, with CCC ranging from 0.89 to 0.96 and Bland-Altman analysis showing small mean differences (−1.2% to 0.09% Brix) and narrow limits of agreements (−4.8% to 2.4% Brix) among laboratories. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Brix refractometry shows good potential for reliably estimating IgG concentrations in beef cow colostrum across multiple laboratories and can be recommended to aid colostrum management decisions on farms.

Background Fruit quality traits such as fruit weight, firmness, total soluble solids content, and color strongly influence consumer acceptance, market value, postharvest shelf life, and processing efficiency in tomato. Therefore, these traits are central to breeding programs but remain challenging to dissect due to their polygenic and pleiotropic nature. Results We evaluated 167 accessions from the Varitome collection, encompassing Solanum pimpinellifolium , Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme , and Solanum lycopersicum var. lycopersicum . The Varitome collection represents a rich source of genetic and phenotypic diversity, making it a powerful resource for mapping complex traits. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) were conducted using the FarmCPU and Blink models, utilizing a dataset of 3,879,252 SNPs, 831,152 INDELs, and 11,447 structural variants (SVs). Six fruit-quality traits were phenotyped: fruit weight, firmness, total soluble solids, lightness ( L* ), chroma ( C* ), and hue ( h° ). Our multi-variant GWAS uncovered both known and novel determinants of fruit quality. Known loci such as PSY1 and fw11.3/CSR were validated, while robust new signals were detected on chromosomes 1, 4, 6, 8, and 12 for °Brix and on chromosome 7 for fruit weight. Several pleiotropic hotspots were identified, particularly on chromosomes 1, 5, 6, and 8 for fruit color, supported by convergent SNP, INDEL, and SV associations. Candidate genes included biosynthetic enzymes ( PSY homologs , LIN5 ), sugar transporters (SWEETs, SUTs, and sugar facilitator proteins), transcriptional regulators (MADS-box, bHLH, TCP, NAC, and MYB families), and genes linked to plastid remodeling, light signaling, and oxidative turnover. Integration of INDELs and SVs across models improved mapping resolution and robustness, enabling the detection of loci that would remain hidden in SNP-only scans. Conclusions This study demonstrates the multilayered genetic networks governing tomato fruit quality and expands the catalog of loci contributing to polygenic traits. By using SNPs, INDELs, and SVs with FarmCPU and Blink models, we provide validated and novel targets for marker-assisted breeding, genomic selection, and functional validation. These findings establish a framework for accelerating the development of tomato cultivars with enhanced fruit weight, sweetness, firmness, and color, thereby supporting both market competitiveness and nutritional quality.

Consumer interest in natural antioxidants has risen because their intake is linked to the prevention of chronic diseases. Blueberries (Vaccinium spp.)—rich in flavonoids, vitamin C and other bioactive compounds—are therefore being cultivated beyond temperate regions. In tropical areas, however, the lack of chilling hours may alter fruit physiology, and little is known about how pruning practices modulate quality under these conditions. The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of pruning types and seasons on the antioxidant activity, physical and chemical characteristics (TSS, TTA, TSS/TTA), and ash, moisture, and fiber contents in blueberries of the cultivar Biloxi grown under tropical climate conditions (without chilling hours), in Brasilia, DF, Brazil. The trial followed a randomized-block design with three replications. Plants received either severe pruning removing lateral branches (SPRLB) or severe pruning maintaining lateral branches (SPMLB) in winter, spring, summer or autumn; fruit harvested over the subsequent four weeks was analysed for DPPH radical-scavenging capacity, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TTA), TSS/TTA ratio, ash, moisture and fibre contents. Pruning season exerted the strongest effect. Autumn pruning—regardless of type—produced the highest antioxidant activity and elevated TSS. SPRLB increased TTA, whereas SPMLB enhanced the TSS/TTA ratio during warmer seasons. These findings demonstrate that pruning season plays a key role in enhancing blueberry fruit quality under tropical conditions. Consumer interest in natural antioxidants has risen because their intake is linked to the prevention of chronic diseases. Blueberries (Vaccinium spp.)—rich in flavonoids, vitamin C and other bioactive compounds—are therefore being cultivated beyond temperate regions. In tropical areas, however, the lack of chilling hours may alter fruit physiology, and little is known about how pruning practices modulate quality under these conditions. The objective of this study was to quantify the effects of pruning types and seasons on the antioxidant activity, physical and chemical characteristics (TSS, TTA, TSS/TTA), and ash, moisture, and fiber contents in blueberries of the cultivar Biloxi grown under tropical climate conditions (without chilling hours), in Brasilia, DF, Brazil. The trial followed a randomized-block design with three replications. Plants received either severe pruning removing lateral branches (SPRLB) or severe pruning maintaining lateral branches (SPMLB) in winter, spring, summer or autumn; fruit harvested over the subsequent four weeks was analysed for DPPH radical-scavenging capacity, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TTA), TSS/TTA ratio, ash, moisture and fibre contents. Pruning season exerted the strongest effect. Autumn pruning—regardless of type—produced the highest antioxidant activity and elevated TSS. SPRLB increased TTA, whereas SPMLB enhanced the TSS/TTA ratio during warmer seasons. These findings demonstrate that pruning season plays a key role in enhancing blueberry fruit quality under tropical conditions.