Abstract

There is a growing demand for developing effective non-destructive quality assessment methods with quick response, high accuracy, and low cost for fresh fruits. In this study, hyperspectral reflectance imaging (400 to 1000 nm) and acoustic emission (AE) tests were applied to ‘GoldRush‘ apples (total number, n = 180) to predict fruit firmness, total soluble solids (TSS), and surface color parameters (L*, a*, b*) during an eight-week storage period. Partial least squares (PLS) regression, least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM), and multivariate linear regression (MLR) methods were used to establish models to predict the quality attributes of the apples. The results showed that hyperspectral imaging (HSI) could accurately predict all the attributes except TSS, while the AE method was capable of predicting fruit firmness, b* color index, and TSS. Overall, HSI regression using PLS had better comprehensive ability for predicting firmness, TSS, and color parameters (L*, a*, b*) than AE, with correlation coefficients of prediction (rp) of 0.92, 0.41, 0.83, 0.87, and 0.94 and root mean square errors of prediction (RMSEP) of 4.32 (N), 1.78 (°Brix), 3.41, 2.28, and 4.29, respectively, while AE regression using LS-SVM gave rp values of 0.88, 0.74, 0.34, 0.37, and 0.81 and RMSEP values of 4.26 (N), 0.64 (°Brix), 4.69, 1.8, and 5.17 for firmness, TSS, and color parameters (L*, a*, b*), respectively. The results show the potential of these two non-destructive methods for predicting some of the quality attributes of apples.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2017

Notes/Citation Information

Published in Transactions of the ASABE, v. 60, issue 4, p. 1391-1401.

© 2017 American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers

The copyright holder has granted the permission for posting the article here.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13031/trans.12184

Funding Information

The authors would also like to thank the USDA for providing partial sponsorship for this research under Hatch-Multistate Project No. KY005042. We also thank the Iran Ministry of Science and Technology and the University of Tehran for financial support of the scholar who worked on the project.

Related Content

The information reported in this article is part of a project of the Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station (Paper No. 16-05-094) and is published with the approval of the Director.

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