549 DAFL: New Innovative Device to Monitor Fruit Ripening in Storage S. Vidoni a , G. Fiori, L. Rocchi, F. Spinelli, S. Musacchi and G. Costa Department of Agricultural Science Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna Via Fanine Italy Keywords: difference absorbance fruit logger, non-destructive, fruit quality, I AD Abstract The ripening stage reached by the fruits at harvest is linked to the fruit quality traits at consumption; it influences the postharvest management affecting storage length and fruit disease susceptibility. As a consequence, the knowledge of the ripening stage at harvest becomes essential, as well as the monitoring of the fruit ripening changes during cold storage. The index of absorbance difference (I AD ) can follow the fruit ripening along the supply chain starting in the orchard, provided by the DA-Meter, a non-destructive device operating in VIS-NIR wavelenghts, and during cold storage, with the DAFL (difference absorbance fruit logger) that measures automatically the I AD at fixed intervals. The DAFL remote devices are positioned on a given number of fruits kept in cold storage and the I AD values are transmitted by radio to a server. The real time monitoring of these values gives indication on the management of the fruit as related to the ripening during storage. INTRODUCTION The ripening stage reached by the fruits at harvest is linked to the fruit quality traits at consumption; it influences the postharvest management affecting storage length and fruit disease susceptibility. As a consequence, the knowledge of the ripening stage at harvest becomes essential as well as the monitoring of the fruit ripening changes occurring during cold storage (Yom Dinet al., 2001). Although fruit quality is recognized as a very important aspect (Shewfelt, 1998), it is determined by simple analyses of the traditional fruit quality traits such as the amount of soluble solids, starch content or on the basis of fruit size and skin blush as related to the considered species (Testolin et al., 1994; Testoni et al., 2003; Crisosto et al., 2003). It is also a rule of thumb to harvest fruits at high flesh firmness values to overcome any damage during sorting (Andreotti et al., 2000). In pear, in particular, the fruit grading is performed mainly in field conditions on the basis of the grower experience and the fruit sizing and classifications are made only at the end of storage before the fruits are marketed, because pear fruits are very susceptible to bruising. Except for blush, all the determinations reported above require the destruction of the fruit and, as a result, are carried out on a limited number of fruit, which might not be representative of the batch of considered fruits (Vanoli et al., 2012). In recent years, extensive research focused on the development of non-destructive techniques for assessing internal fruit quality attributes. These new approaches have been so far considered mainly at field or in packinghouse at the sorting level. Although modern cold storage rooms are equipped with sensors for gas and temperature detection, only one device (Harvest watch in DCA) is able to directly monitor the ripening evolution. In these trials, a new device, named DAFL (difference absorbance fruit logger) that operates with the same principle of the DA-Meter (Costa et al., 2009) and that allows monitoring the ripening evolution in cold storage have been tested on pear. MATERIALS AND METHODS The research has been carried out for two consecutive years on seven-year-old a serena.vidoni@unibo.it Proc. XII International Pear Symposium Eds.: T. Deckers and J. Vercammen Acta Hort. 1094, ISHS 2015