Development of Real-Time Internal Quality Evaluation Technique for Korean Red Ginseng using NIR Spectroscopy

This study was conducted to develop a real-time internal quality evaluation technique for Korean red ginseng using NIR spectroscopy while they were moving to be graded. Internal qualities of Korean red ginseng were defined by color, amount of white core and cavity in the red ginseng. To evaluate the internal quality, PLS (Partial Least Square) model was developed. Spectrum saturation can be occurred when most red ginseng has a sound internal quality expressed by higher light transmittance ratio, but that could not found in the ginseng of internal white core under the same light situation. And, if spectrum saturation is obtained, it is hard to identify the exact information of internal quality. In order to evaluate of the internal quality regardless of having internal normal core or white core, an integral time controlled method was used to obtain traditional spectrum. This procedure was applied in real-time process when red ginseng was moving to be graded in the line. Among the 450 samples including 223 internal normal ginsengs and 227 internal white core ginsengs, 315 ginsengs (70%) were used to develop a calibration model and 135 ginsengs were spent to validate the model. The result of quality evaluation by the model was very good showing SEP and bias were 0.3573 and 0.0310, respectively, and the accuracy was 95.6%.