Performance of an Expert Sensory Panel and Instrumental Measures for Assessing Eating Fruit Quality Attributes in a Pear Breeding Programme

Breeding programmes count on stable trained panels that support breeding evaluation selections. This work aimed to evaluate the performance of a small expert panel in the join IRTA-PFR breeding programme to validate its use in the sensory assessments of fruit pear genotypes during the selection process. A breeding F1 population of 80 pear seedlings from this programme was used. Descriptors and standard references used for sensory evaluations of pear attributes were previously defined by the four members of the expert panel. A General Procrustes Analysis (GPA) was applied to analyse the relations between instrumental and sensory traits. The results showed a good relationship between sensory attributes such as firmness and crispness with penetrometer measures. A high correlation was also found between sensory sourness and titratable acidity (TA). Panel performance was evaluated in terms of reproducibility, homogeneity, and panel consonance. The results indicated that the experts were very consistent and had a good performance. The work demonstrates, for the first time, that a small expert trained panel could be efficiently used in pear breeding programmes and allows for the selection process in a more economical and available way in contrast to the larger sensory panels conventionally used.