Affiliation:
1. Institute of Food Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
2. Weifang Institute of food science and processing technology
3. Sanya Institute, Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences
4. Chinwhiz Agribusiness Co.,Ltd
Abstract
Abstract
Non-destructive evaluation of internal and external quality attributes is imperative for effectively grading and sorting tomatoes. This study compared visible/near-infrared (Vis/NIR) diffuse reflectance and transmission spectroscopy for rapid, non-invasive measurement of key indicators, including color, hardness, total sugar (TS), and total acidity (TA). A sample set of 110 tomatoes across multiple ripeness levels was divided into calibration (n = 82) and prediction (n = 28) subsets. Vis/NIR spectra were obtained using reflectance and transmission systems and pre-processed before multivariate analysis. Partial least squares regression (PLSR) models were developed, relating the spectra to reference measurements using competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS-PLS). For internal parameters of TS and TA, transmission PLS models demonstrated superior performance over reflectance, with prediction R values of 0.9511 and 0.9818. In contrast, for external attributes of color and hardness, reflectance PLS models performed better given consistent bulk fruit maturity, with prediction R values of 0.9595 and 0.9713. This study demonstrates the potential of Vis/NIR diffuse transmission spectroscopy for non-invasive analysis of internal and external tomato quality attributes. The findings provide a basis for developing handheld devices and inline online systems for sorting tomatoes based on comprehensive ripeness assessment.
Publisher
Research Square Platform LLC