The Chilean kiwi harvest season has begun and the Kiwi Committee has changed the parameters of the Maturity Assurance Program (PAM) for 2017 to improve the uniformity of the fruit. The PAM's central objective is the application of minimum maturity standards to regulate the beginning of kiwi harvests, ensuring the fruit's minimum acceptability by consumers.
According to Carlos Cruzat, the Chairman of the Committee, this season, there is a change in the required parameters for those units of maturity that do not meet the minimum average of 15.5% of dry matter and that have to achieve an average of 6.2 ° Brix to be released. This season, the maturity units (MU) will require all fruits have a minimum of 12% dry matter. To reduce the variability of the fruit in terms of conservation and flavor potential, the Kiwi Committee also decreased the surface maturity units to a maximum of 5 hectares.
"This year, our strategies have a special focus on producers, i.e. the Committee's efforts are aimed at improving the raw material from the orchards. We are also recommending producers make use of the technical managements that have been developed in the past nine years to obtain a quality product that is competitive in different markets and that is accepted by the final consumer. To improve the information channel to producers, we will implement a communications program that will allow this transfer to be effective," Cruzat said.
All these changes are implemented before the start of the harvest, but they are not the only improvements made by the PAM, as they will also audit the maturity units. In this regard, the Committee will verify, on the ground, that producers comply with the established agricultural criteria for the correct definition of UMs. They will also ensure that they have the indicated areas and that all the UMs of an area are registered in the system. "This audit will be conducted by the Committee and the Foundation for Fruit Development (FDF)," he stated.
Evaluations in packing facilities
To support producers, so they can achieve a more homogeneous product, and a better quality and taste, the Committee will also implement new fruit harvest assessment programs this season, which will allow the producer to have information on the actual harvest maturity of their fruits,and the current standards. "We'll implement a program where we will take a random sample of 48 fruits from 5 different bins in the processing plant. This will allow us to know the real value of the fruit harvest in terms of dry materials and Brix degrees, and characterize the potential of the crops by agro-climatic zone, said the representative of the Kiwi Committee.
This is the first year that they will conduct a program to characterize the fruit. The shape of a percentage of the fruit at the packing station will be evaluated to characterize their cosmetic quality. This will be achieved by taking 100 random fruits from 5 bins to analyze the batch. These activities will be carried out by the Committee in conjunction with the Decofrut company.
Quality checks according to the standard
Another aspect being considered for 2017 is the verification of the quality of the fruit packed at origin, in accordance to the Quality Standard proposed by the Committee. "This will be done to assess the implementation of the rule proposed by the Committee in the industry, i.e. we'll have weekly information about the quality of the fruit being packaged throughout the season. This will be done by an external company that is in charge of doing the sampling," Cruzat said.
Creation of the Plant Health Technical Board
The Technical Committee of Psa, which was exclusively devoted to monitoring the studies and related regulations regarding the Psa bacteria, will be transformed into a Plant Health Technical Board, which will aim to oversee all the pests and diseases that are causing some alarm in the plant health world.
"This change of role is the result of the proper operation achieved by the technical committee of the Psa, which is a complex plant problem. In this sense, the new Board will continue to monitor the Psa, but it will also put a special focus on some quarantine pests or commercially important diseases that Chile needs to control," said the Chairman of the Committee.
The technology Program for the Fruit for Export in the South Zone
The Committee is also participating in the Technology Program for the Fruit for Export production of the South Zone; a recent initiative created through Corfo, for blueberries, raspberries, and kiwis. The kiwi industry will present a project to introduce and evaluate Actinidia genetic materials to renovate the Kiwi varietal supply, increase its productivity, and improve its compet-itiveness.
"We want to bring material to Chile, evaluate it in a specialized center, and create a variety assessment protocol for the future. The goal is to be able to assess the new varieties introduced in the country or compare them to other varieties using protocols that allow us to make valid comparisons. This methodology will be developed for the initial evaluations, conducted at field level, and for the evaluations of the fruit's post-harvest qualities and behavior, which will allow us to conduct a follow-up check of the varieties that come from other countries," Cruzat stated.
Source: simfruit.cl