Quality Evaluation of Crops by means of Non-destruction Analysis with Near-Infrared spectroscopy

Part II Development of Software for Analysis of Contents and Taste of Tomato

Abstract

Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is becoming a common method in food analysis, because it is very rapid, and little or no sample preparation is required. However there are few softwares for vegetable and fruit analyses, now.
Therefore, softwares for non-destructive quality evaluation of tomato were investigated with NIR spectroscopy.
(1) Regression analyses between data from NIR spectrum and chemical analyses were executed. Wavelengths and calibrations which were highly correlative with contents of tomato, were searched by multiple linear regression.
(2) Wavelengths and calibrations which were highly correlative with taste examination values of tomato, were searched by multiple linear regression, too. The correlation coefficient was r =0.78.
(3) Confidences of searched calibrations were examined with unknown sample.
With the mean of applying NIR to surface of tomato, it was maked clear that calibrations of contents and taste in tomato were confidential. That is to say, correlation coefficients with Brix, Acid, L-sugar, K, Mg, and grocery were r= 0.89, 0.56, 0.68, 0.91, 0.91 and 0.72 respectively.
The correlation coefficient of taste was r =0.89. All these correlations were found to be significant.
(4) From the above mentioned facts it was confirmed that we could get effective calibrations for non-destructive quality evaluation of tomato with NIR spectroscopy.