The Kinetic Model of the Peel Brittleness of Stored Cucumis Melons Based on Visible/Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

Abstract

A kinetic model based on visible/near-infrared spectroscopy of the peel brittleness of “Xintian-125” Cucumis melons, the research object, stored under room temperature, was established in order to realize real-time monitoring of the peel brittleness of Cucumis melons and for prediction of storage time. The NIR and peel brittleness of melons stored for 1, 4, and 7 days were collected and measured. SG was confirmed to be the best pretreatment by comparing the PLS models established with 4 pretreatment methods, and the differences of the prediction set determination coefficient and root-mean-square were 0.818 and 23.755, respectively. CARS and SPA were adopted to extract the feature wavelengths and establish the peel brittleness of PLS prediction model. The model’s prediction accuracy was 0.919, and the prediction root-mean-square was 25.413, indicating that NIR is able to realize the prediction of the peel brittleness of Cucumis melons. As a result, a NIR-based peel brittleness kinetic model was created. The P value of the regression model was less than 0.001, and the model’s correlation coefficient was 0.8503, showing that the model is of extreme significance and high precision. The zero-order reaction equation was overfitted according to the variation tendency of the average peel brittleness of stored melons. The model’s correlation coefficient was 0.981, the standard error was 4.624, and the linear relation between the stored period and NIR was established based on it. The research proves that the NIR-based technology is able to realize quick and loss-free inspection of melons’ peel brittleness and prediction of the stored period.