Characterization of Strawberry Genotypes by PTR-MS Spectral Fingerprinting: A Three Year Study

Proton Transfer Reaction Mass Spectrometry (PTR-MS) fingerprinting has been used to accurately and rapidly identify the cultivar of single intact strawberry fruits. The technique has been applied in a 3-cultivar experiment with 70 fruits harvested in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The proposed models correctly predicted the cultivar. Cross-validation tests verified 100% correct classification. The data indicated the possibility of correctly characterizing single fruit by fast non-invasive measurements without any pre-treatment and/or concentration of the headspace gas mixture. This is a necessary preliminary step in view of correlation studies of PTR-MS data with genetics and other characterization of fruits, in particular, sensory analysis. Extension to more cultivars is envisaged.