Impact Injury at Harvest Promotes Body Rots in ‘Hass’ Avocado Fruit upon Ripening

Detection of early bruises in apples using hyperspectral imaging and an improved MobileViT network

Apples are susceptible to postharvest bruises, leading to a shortened shelf life and significant waste. Therefore, accurate detection of apple bruises is crucial to mitigate food waste. This study proposed an improved lightweight network based on MobileViT for detecting early-stage bruises in apples, utilizing hyperspectral imaging technology from 397.66 to 1003.81 nm. After acquiring hyperspectral images, the Otsu threshold algorithm was employed for mask extraction, and principal component analysis was used for feature image extraction. Subsequently, the improved MobileViT network (iM-ViT) was implemented and compared with traditional algorithms, utilizing depthwise separable convolutions for parameter reduction and integrating local and global features to enhance bruise detection capability. The results demonstrated the superior performance of iM-ViT in accurately detecting apple bruises, showing significant improvements. The F1 score and test accuracy for detecting apple bruises using iM-ViT reached 0.99 and 99.07%, respectively. The fivefold cross-validation strategy was used to assess the stability and robustness of iM-ViT, and ablation experiments were performed to explore the effects of depthwise separable convolutions and local features on parameter reduction and classification accuracy improvement for early-stage bruise detection in apples. The results demonstrated that iM-ViT effectively reduced parameters and improved the ability to detect early bruises in apples. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: This study proposed an improved lightweight network to detect early bruises in apples, providing a reference for quick detection of bruises caused in the production process. Potential insights into the nondestructive detection of apple bruises using lightweight networks have been presented, which might be applied to mobile or online devices.

Temporal Change in Iron Content of Vegetables and Legumes in Australia: A Scoping Review

Studies in UK and US have reported a temporal decline in the iron content of plant-based foods. Limited research on this topic has been conducted in Australia. The aim of this scoping review was to provide a comprehensive evaluation on the temporal change in iron content of Australian vegetables and legumes from 1900 onward. A systematic search of electronic databases, websites, backward reference searching, and Australian food composition tables was conducted. A total of 34 articles and six versions of Australian food composition databases published between 1930s to 2021, were included in this review. Overall, iron content of vegetables and legumes were assessed at limited time points and geographical origin, cultivars, sampling and analytical techniques varied across studies. The majority of vegetables had similar iron content between two or more timepoints but decreases of 30-50% were noted for sweet corn, red-skinned potatoes, cauliflower and green beans while increases of 150-300% were seen for Hass avocadoes, mushrooms and silverbeet. More pronounced reductions in iron content were observed for legumes, with higher and more variable values reported pre-2000 compared to recent years. Due to limited data and variations in sampling and analytical techniques, no definitive conclusions could be established. As plant-based diets are becoming more popular, consistent monitoring of the nutrient composition of staple plant-based foods is strongly recommended.