Pumpkins get a taste of high tech to measure quality

Choosing the sweetest pumpkin at the market may soon be as easy as scanning it with a high-tech device, thereby eliminating the need to squeeze or taste it.

Chinese scientists recently developed a technology that quickly and accurately measures the sensory qualities of pumpkins.

This achievement, made by researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, combines two advanced technologies: near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIRS, and hyperspectral imaging, or HSI.

Traditionally, evaluating pumpkin quality proved a slow and subjective process with farmers relying on cooking and tasting them to gauge their sweetness and other relevant factors. The new method, however, allows for a more objective evaluation by analyzing critical elements like starch and moisture content, which affect taste and texture.

In their efforts to develop this technology, the team collected 97 pumpkin samples from 34 different pumpkins. Using NIRS and HSI technology, they created predictive models to assess sensory quality based on the starch and moisture content in each pumpkin.

The results showed that the NIRS method correlated 0.788, while the HSI method achieved an even higher correlation of 0.934, demonstrating exceptional accuracy in predicting pumpkin quality.

In addition to measuring quality, these methods can create maps that illustrate the distribution of starch and moisture within each pumpkin.

"This technology provides a fast, accurate and objective way to evaluate pumpkin quality, eliminating guesswork," says Xu Zhuopin, a researcher at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, adding that the technology will help growers select the best varieties and improve production processes.

According to the researchers, their current experiments are based on sliced pumpkins, while the new technique can also test quality without damaging the pumpkin.

Moreover, Xu says that this technology could be applied to other fruits and vegetables as well. "We are developing customized solutions based on specific requirements. For example, companies could use it to measure the sugar content in apples or vitamin levels in oranges," Xu adds.

Details of this technological achievement were recently published in two journals — the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, and Microwave and Optical Technology Letters.