Non-destructive methods of measuring tuber turgor pressures to assess the risk of potato bruising

Bruising of fresh produce is a significant problem for various strands of the agricultural industry. Potatoes are particularly susceptible to bruising, and bruised crops are one of the major reasons for quality downgrades, resulting in valuable crops being sold for a fraction of their true price and costing the industry £millions annually. Detection of bruised potatoes is typically done in QC environments, but once bruising has occurred it is too late to do much about it, other than to prevent the bruised potatoes from being used in fresh produce lines. Instead, it would be more useful to have a measure of the likelihood of individual potatoes to bruise at an early point in the processing pipeline, so that they could be segregated accordingly. But measuring susceptibility to bruising without destroying the tubers has never been done and is a substantial challenge.

A key property that correlates with bruising is termed turgor pressure, and is a measure of the pressure inside cells that leads to them becoming more rigid and more able to stand blunt force insults, such as being allowed to fall from height. In this project we propose to team up with analytical scientists to trial a range of cutting-edge technologies, the outputs of which we believe may allow us to differentiate tubers with high versus low turgor pressures, and hence differential susceptibility to bruising. In initial experiments, we will test several potential measurement techniques following which we will focus on the most promising technique for more in depth testing. We aim to identify an appropriate methodology for further development and commercial application during potato processing in an agricultural environment. If we are successful, direct savings could be measured in £10Ms per annum, with indirect savings through environmental benefits and reductions in food waste being substantially higher.