A team of Canadian researchers, led by Chandra Singh, director of the Advanced Post-harvest Technology Centre at Lethbridge Polytechnic, has made a significant advancement in the agricultural sector with a new non-destructive testing (NDT) technology. The innovative system uses AI-powered spectral imaging to assess the quality of crops without causing any damage, a breakthrough that is expected to be widely adopted by the industry in the coming years.
The project, which included collaborators from the University of Guelph and the University of Prince Edward Island, concentrated on using near-infrared light to penetrate the surface of crops like dried beans, lentils, and chickpeas to analyze their internal properties. Singh noted that while the initial focus was on pulse crops, the technology could be easily trained to test other crops, such as wheat, to predict metrics like protein content. “Once it’s trained for the wheat crop, it will be able to predict protein content in wheat as well,” Singh said.
This non-destructive approach offers a major advantage over traditional methods, which often require samples to be physically altered or destroyed during testing. According to Singh, the combination of hardware and software improvements, along with decreasing costs, makes the technology a viable solution for real-world application on farms and at grain elevators. He is optimistic that its adoption will become widespread within the next three to five years.
Reference: https://calgaryherald.com/business/non-destructive-crop-testing-technology-lethbridge-researcher
