Feasibility of NIR spectroscopy detection of moisture content in coco-peat substrate based on the optimization characteristic variables.

Moisture content is an important index to evaluate the water content in substrate. Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was used for rapid quantitative detection of moisture content of coco-peat substrate. The different spectral pretreatment methods were adopted to pre-process the spectral data. Successive projection algorithm (SPA), elimination of uninformative variables algorithm (UVE) and synergy interval partial least squares algorithm (Si-PLS) were used to screen characteristic variables of coco-peat substrate original spectral data and different pretreatment spectral data. The partial least squares (PLSR) and multiple linear regression (MLR) were used to establish the relationship model between the spectral data and reference measurement value of moisture content. In comparison, the best and simplest spectral prediction model was established when SPA was used to screen the characteristic variables of Savitzky-Golay (S-G) smoothing spectral data and MLR was used to establish the model. And the corresponding correlation coefficient and root mean square error of calibration set were 0.9976 and 1.0989%, respectively; the correlation coefficient and root mean square error of prediction set were 0.9963 and 1.4029%, respectively, and RPD was 11.28. The results of this study provided a feasible method for the rapid detection of moisture content of coco-peat substrate.