The Effect of Harvest Timing on French Fry Textural Quality of Three Processing Potato Varieties: Russet Burbank, Alpine Russet, and Clearwater Russet

Harvesting potatoes at or near physiological maturity increases the likelihood of producing high quality tubers which contributes to producing high quality processed French fries with the desired sensory attributes. Processing with immature or overly mature potatoes may produce French fries with reduced palatability. This two year (2014 and 2015) study evaluated the effects of three different harvest dates; early, normal, and late, on quality attributes of French fries produced from three processing varieties, Russet Burbank, Clearwater Russet, and Alpine Russet over a nine month storage season at 8.3 °C. The seven quality attributes evaluated included crispness, exterior shell, mealiness, moistness, texture variation, texture defects, and internal appearance. Results of this study show that early harvest, relative to normal and late harvest, was more detrimental to producing high quality French fries with regard to texture, and most notably, crispness. During storage, French fries produced from early harvested potatoes declined in quality and were out of grade for crispness at five months after harvest in 2014 and were out of grade at harvest for the full storage season in 2015. Significant differences were noted among the three varieties with regard to texture quality. Alpine Russet declined in textural quality five months after harvest. Russet Burbank declined rapidly in textural quality over the course of the storage season. Clearwater Russet consistently maintained acceptable quality with the highest textural scores of all seven parameters for a full nine month storage season.