Visible and Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy for Fast Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Nectarine Quality

Visible and near-infrared spectroscopy has been widely used as a non-invasive and rapid-assessment technique for the quality control of agricultural products. In this study, 325 samples of nectarines representing two commercial varieties, cv. 'Big Top' and cv. 'Magique', were analysed by visible and near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (VIS-NIR). The spectral data were pre-treated and analysed to predict the internal quality of the samples and to discriminate between the two varieties. Good prediction of the internal quality of the samples, using partial least-squares regressions, was observed for both (R (2) (P) of 0.909 and 0.927 and RMSEP of 0.235 and 0.238 for cv. Big Top and Magique, respectively). Discriminant models, using linear discriminant and partial least-squares discriminant analyses, were built to classify the nectarines. Both methods provided good results with rates of 97.44 and 100% of correctly classified samples. The results indicated that visible and near-infrared techniques can be useful and simple methods for quality control and for the correct identification of nectarines in commercial lines as an alternative to the slower and less accurate manual classification.