ABSTRACT
Biochemical degradation of chlorophyll results in exposure of carotenoids, giving fruits and vegetables a characteristic maturity symptom of yellowing (1). Since our eyes perceive colors, subjective visual evaluation has traditionally been used to judge maturity and other quality attributes of fruits and vegetables. Recent progress in the development of new methods utilizing optical properties has pro vided several objective techniques for rapid, accurate, more uniform quality as sessment. The discovery of delayed light emission (DLE) by Strehler and Arnold (2) has offered an alternative for evaluating quality of chlorophyll-containing plant materials. The strong dependence of chlorophyll concentration and the dura tion and intensity of DLE have been applied in developing indices for different quality attributes of various fruits and vegetables (3). Recent investigations (4) show that if the variables that are known to affect the duration and intensity of DLE are carefully controlled, the efficiency of sorting fruits and vegetables could be increased.
