NON-DESTRUCTIVE ESTIMATION OF CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT IN YELLOW PASSION FRUIT LEAVES

Abstract

The chlorophyll content in leaf of yellow passion fruit is usually determined by destructive methodologies. Portable chlorophyll meters make indirect measuring of leaf chlorophyll concentration possible in rapid and non-destructive way. The chlorophyll content of yellow passion fruit leaves were determined fifty times by dimethylsulfoxide extraction and estimated by the chlorophyll meter SPAD-502. Linear relations among the SPAD readings and the chlorophyll concentrations were established. The estimated chlorophyll contents were, Ya= 2.7990 + 0.3208X; Yb = -11.7934 + 1.2815X, and Yt= 9.0497 + 1.3967X, with determination coefficients (r²) of 0.9942, 0.9893, and 0.9948, respectively for chlorophyll a, b and total. It is concluded that SPAD readings had good accuracy in estimating the leaf chlorophyll concentration of the passion fruit plant, in a non-desctructive way, by linear regression models.