Evaluation of fruit quality of four ecotypes of yellow and green prickly pear at harvest

ORTÍN PATRICIA S.; SARAVIA ARIAS P.; TÁLAMO ANDRÉS; LOZANO LELIA; BOLDRINI CARLOS; VINOCUR R.; VISUARA M.

Paraiba, Brasil

Congreso; VI International Congress on Cactus Pear and Cochineal. VI General Meeting of FAO-CACTUSNET; 2007

FAO-CACTUSNET

Tuna is a very adapted species to the Argentine Northwest. For fruit production, quality is important; based on that, the goal of this work was the evaluation of the quality of different ecotypes. There were four harvests of fruits (19/01; 25/01; 01/02; 07/02.) in the 2.007, in Salta, Argentina of the yellow ecotypes: Amarilla Ric, in Coronel Moldes (SL 24º 53’; WL 65º 29’), and Ortega and Catamarca (yellow), and the green ecotype: Forrajera in Cerrillos (SL 53º 24’; WL 27º 65’). Analyses of internal and external fruit quality were made and applied the Kruskal-Wallis tests. From the comparisons it arose that Amarilla Ric are the ones of inferior internal and external quality (92,36 g de weight and 11,62 % soluble solids). Ortega’s resulted better by its size (136,87 g; p=0,0001) although with minor soluble solids contents (12,12 %; p=0,0001) than the other two. Between Forrajera and Catamarca, which had good parameters, were the first, outstanding in firmness (1,03 kg/cm2.) and soluble solids contents (13,77 %). Significant statistically differences were not found between harvests for weight, within each variety; but it was for soluble solids content, that increased towards the fourth harvest for the varieties, except for Amarilla Ric.