Regular articleIs this melon sweet? A quantitative classification for near-infrared spectroscopy
Graphical abstract
Section snippets
Introduction:
Melons (Cucumis Melo) are nutritious, sweet, and amongst the most refreshing summer fruits in Pakistan. Honey melons are cultivated in Sindh, Punjab, and some parts of Kyber Pakhtun Khaw province of Pakistan, harvested from April till June. These are not the same as honey dew melons although they have little resemblance in appearance. Honey melons have creamy net patterns on their skin with a strong fragrant aroma. Melons come under the class of non-climacteric fruits i.e. once harvested they
Melon samples preparation
For the experiment, a total of 101 honey melon samples were purchased from local market in five different batches (20 melons each) covering one full season of melons i.e. on 17 April, 1 May, 15 May, 29 May and 12 June 2020. All samples were elliptic and individual fruit weight was around 0.5–1.5 kg. Average rind thickness was 6.68 mm. All samples were transported to a local laboratory (Islamabad, Pakistan) and stored at room temperature (25 °C) for 24 h to minimize the influence of sample
Vis /NIR spectroscopy analysis
Vis/NIR spectroscopy (range 350–2500 nm) records response of O-H, C-H, C-O and N-H bonds in fruits. Hence these organic molecules absorb energy as they vibrate because of NIR radiation exposure, which is translated into absorbance spectrum by NIR spectrometer. Short wave NIR radiation i.e. 750–1300 nm is considered as the absorbance band of high overtones i.e. 3rd and 4th overtone while common NIR (after 1300 nm) belongs to 1st or 2nd overtone.
The raw absorbance spectra of 101 melons within
Conclusion
We proposed direct classification based quantitative measure to predict melons sweetness intensity using NIR spectroscopy. An extensive evaluation was conducted on “honey melon” variety, which is grown in Pakistan. A total of 101 melons with average rind thickness 6.68 mm, were scanned from four sides at equator position. The industry standard F-750 spectrometer employing interactance optical geometry was used to collect spectral data. After spectra collection, destructive testing was performed
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
This research is supported by Pakistan Agriculture Research Council, Agriculture Linkage Program.
Grant numbers: AE-007. Ministry of Education – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. National Center of Robotics and Automation, Robot Design and Development Lab Grant numbers: DF-1009-31.
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