Morphological and histological characterization of bruising of ‘Gordal Sevillana’ table olives

Abstract

'Gordal Sevillana' is one of the most important table olive cultivars. It is appreciated for its large size, and fruits are mainly intended for green processing. During harvesting, fruits can be damaged causing important losses in the final product quality. This damage known as “bruising” is characterized by darkening of both the surface and the mesocarp of the fruit due to cell rupture and enzymatic oxidation of phenolic compounds. Our group has developed a methodology to characterize and localize this damage based on morphological and histological studies after an induced impact in fruits of different table olive cultivars. This paper presents the results of the location and evolution over time of bruising damage in the cultivar 'Gordal Sevillana' using this methodology. The total damaged area was quantified in portions of mesocarp tissue of the bruised fruit by image analysis. Later, different quantitative parameters related to the number and location of the tissue ruptures were determined in histological sections of the damaged fruit mesocarp. To observe the progress over time, measurements were made at 0.5, 2 and 24 h after the impact. Our results revealed that the distribution and extent of the damaged area (bruising) in 'Gordal Sevillana' vary with respect to other previously studied cultivars. Furthermore, it was confirmed that the extent of damage increased over time.