Forecasting of the mango crop: Quantity and quality

Precision management of the mango crop can be aided by quantitative measures of indices relevant to fruit maturation and measurement of the fruit load per tree. Such measures address fruit quantity and quality, respectively. Mango fruit DM at harvest is an index of ripened fruit eating quality of ripened fruit, and DM is also useful in assessment of the stage of maturation of the fruit. This thesis considered the robustness of NIR spectroscopy based DM models for use with fruit from different harvest events and of five cultivars (Calypso™, Honey Gold, Keitt, Kensington Pride and R2E2), from two distinct growing regions (Northern Territory and Queensland, over two seasons). Individual cultivar calibrations achieved cross validation statistics of Rcv2 = 0.85-0.93; RMSECV = 0.61-0.96% DM, while a combined cultivar (global) model had satisfactory statistics of Rcv2 = 0.84; RMSECV = 0.99% DM.