grated approach involving the pooling of expertise and knowledge from
several disciplines.
REQUIREMENTS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
It should be clear from the preceding sections that the innate varia-
tion in a crop of apples harvested in each year represents a considerable
challenge to the provision of a consistent, high-quality product to the
consumer. The ultimate aim is to understand the effects of all the fac-
tors that impact upon the fruit during development and that influence
quality after harvest and during storage. The ultimate aim must be a pre-
diction of all the attributes that constitute quality, assuming that there is
agreement on the definition of quality. The changes in consumer re-
quirements that inevitably occur will demand a continued effort by re-
searchers to understand the underlying mechanisms and processes that
determine quality. There is a need to understand the basis of the varia-
tion in the quality of individual apples within a population on a tree, in
addition to the average quality of the population. Improved prediction
of quality and disorders will undoubtedly require considerable resources
to ensure that all relevant explanatory variables are included in the mod-
eling process.
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