Need a device for field experimentation by which temperature of fruit pulp of developing fruit can be measured by non destructive means especially for fruits like mango, banana etc.
It sounds like you want some sort of thermometer to measure the internal temperature of the fruit.
An infra-red thermometer will easily measure the external temperature of the fruit, but it may need to be calibrated for the different skin emmisivity between fruit types. This won't really tell you the internal temperature of the fruit though. A small radius fruit like a banana is going to be similar to the outside temperature throughout, while I imagine a mango or melon will take longer to equilibrate to external changes (sunlight warming the fruit or shade cooling it etc).
To measure internal temperature will require a probe of some sort, which means some sort of damage is likely. To reduce damage, you will probably have to use a thermocouple device (diameter less than 1 mm), which converts temperature at a bi-metallic junction to a current which is read by an ammeter. There are plenty of examples of both devices you can Google.
For a completely non-destructive test, you could try dipping the fruit in a known volume of water at a defined temperature then measuring the change in temperature and calculating the heat exchange and then determining the mass of the fruit and calculate the specific heat. This is messy, prone to error and will be very slow, and probably damage the fruit on the tree or vine anyway.
It might just be easier to sacrifice a few fruits during the experiment, cut them open and use a thermometer.
I had a trail to measure leaf area temperature many years ago using TC thermocouples. For fruit, you ca only measure external temperature and since fruits has high water content (more than 90% in most of the cases), the equilibrium of between external and internal temperatures of the fruit will be reached very quickly. inserting a device to measure internal temperature will cause a degree of damage and this will increase the respiration rate of the tissue in the damages area and give higher temperature.
So, I think using infrared sensor is the best choice.
Infera red devices are the only solution. Any damage to the fruit will affect its internal temperature and give abnormal results.
Youssef Sassine A.M.R. Abdel-Mawgoud Matthew Wheal Thank you for your reply. It will help me. Regards.
Based on the previous discussions, it is clarified that we can use thermocouple or infrared thermometer for nonrestrictive measurement of temperature during fruit development stages. Sir could you please clarify me, when we can measure the external temperature, what is the need of measuring the internal temperature? Is there any linkage between the fruit growth and temperature?
I think there may be increased temperature during proceeding fruit growth as the increased rate of metabolic activity and it reduces during the maturing phases...
If any misconception, kindly rectify...
Thinking you
Subhrajyoti Mishra The fruit development is strongly associated with the external temperature. In fruit crop like mango the varieties like Alphonso has thin peel. The external temperature affect its development as well as quality. If the temperature remains greater during fruit development the fruit will grow rapidly up to maturity but the size reduces. The higher temperature also induces the physiological disorder spongy tissue in such variety. Hence the optimization of pulp temperature during fruit development will be helpful to overcome such melody. Regards.
Infrared thermometer used to measure temperature of fruit pulp of developing fruit on plant by non destructive method.
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