Vertical Farming, Vegetables Shelf Life

The monitoring of the degradation process of leafy vegetables enables the determination of their shelf life: a crucial characteristic to be studied for food safety.

Through the use of the HERA hyperspectral camera it’s possible to detect senescence or illness signs in the sample’s spectra in advance with respect to visual monitoring of the plant. Interestingly, information about the chemical and nutrient composition of the sample can be derived from the spectral read-out, such as chlorophyll, anthocyanin and phenol concentration. Samples for this study were provided by Agricola Moderna, a vertical farm based in Milan.

These features can be obtained by using both reflectance and fluorescence hyper spectral measurements.