Electronic Detection of Pesticide Residue on Cherry Fruits

Abstract

Agriculture is one of the most basic needs that is of vital importance for the human generation to be sustained. In agriculture, pesticides are an indispensable need both to increase productivity and to prevent crop losses. Some of these drugs are pesticides that protect the plant from harmful insects, fungi and rodents, while others are herbicides that protect it from weeds. However, if these chemicals penetrate into people as much as they ensure food safety, they can be harmful with various diseases in the long term. After these pesticides are applied to agricultural products, they decrease to safe levels after 3-10 days depending on the type and dosage of the drug. Long-term exposure to these chemicals can cause a number of health problems such as cancer, hormonal disorders, neurological diseases and immune system weakness. In this study, it was investigated whether the collected cherry and the pesticide-free cherry could be separated by smell after the pesticide was applied to it without passing the mentioned time. Cherries were collected from cherry trees that had never been sprayed, and then pesticide was sprayed on these trees, and cherries that were sprayed with pesticide were collected a day later. An electronic nose consisting of 11 very affordable gas sensors has been made for the study. One hundred pieces of odours were taken by the electronic nose, including different amounts of cherries with and without pesticides. Various attributes of these data have been extracted. Among the four different classification algorithms, the Extra Trees Classifier has given the most successful results with 94.30% classification accuracy, 93.00% sensitivity and 95.60% specificity classification success. The ability to detect the pesticides on the fruit with an electronic device is important for the monitoring of human health through food inspections.