Request for Proposal
Hort Innovation is seeking a suitably qualified, experienced and capable delivery partner for the project: Determining harvest maturity for peaches and nectarines (SF23005).
The objective of the services is to help Hort Innovation validate and compare the utility and accuracy of available tools to non-destructively determine peach and nectarine harvest maturity.
The respondent is to:
- Review the current state of play for the use of maturity sensors in summerfruit production systems.
- Correlate the difference of absorbance (DA) meter and the Rubens sensor with fruit ethylene production in at least ten Australian peach and nectarine export cultivars (only open-access varieties), enabling estimation of harvest maturity based on these sensor’s measurements.
- Provide recommendations for the range of instrument readings that correspond to optimum fruit physiological maturity for storage and export.
- Correlate the Rubens sensor to fruit quality parameters such as firmness and soluble solids concentration.
- Compare the utility and accuracy of the DA meter and Rubens sensor and develop fruit sampling and measurement guidelines for both technologies to measure fruit maturity and quality.
Hort Innovation has prepared a Request for Proposal (RFP) document that provides background information, outlines the scope of services, the procurement process and the information required from interested parties.
The RFP may be downloaded from www.tenders.net (you will need to be a member of tenders.net to access this information).
The closing date for responses is May 17, 2024, 3.00pm (AEST).