The color changes of the peel is one of the physicals parameters most utilized to evaluate the ripening stage of the fruits. The papaya present a characteristic to changing a peel color, from green to yellow. This gradual change accomplished by a not uniform way creates difficulties for the utilization of nominal scale, that are subjected to the interpretation and tiredness to the observant. In this work were made reading in the papaya variety 'Golden' type exportation. In this study, the reading of the parameter L, a, b and reflectance were made in the peel of 100 fruits for each maturation stage 2, 3, 4 and 5. The results obtaineds indicated that Hunter parameter a and b and the peel reflectance in yellow-orange region are promising as objective physical measures to evaluate the maturation stage of 'Golden' papaya fruits.
Carica papaya L.; color of peel; reflectance
