Predicting External Fruit Color for Grapefruit As Affected By Drought Stress

Abstract

Grapefruit belongs to the family of citrus and although it is well adapted to arid and warm climatic conditions, adequately watered grapefruit trees usually produce fruits with good quality. Because the fruit predominantly consists of water, previous studies have shown a strong relationship between the drought stress that is experienced during the various growth stages of grapefruit and fruit quality traits such as fruit size, external color, juice content, total soluble solids (TSS), total acid (TA) and the TSS/TA ratio. The objective of this research was to develop a computer model to predict postharvest grapefruit quality as a function of drought stress. External fruit color was selected for modeling as a key external quality trait of grapefruit.