In pomegranate, carob moth infestation is a postharvest problem. In most cases, damage develops inside the fruit i.e. without affecting the rind. Consequently, visual inspection is not adequate for identification of carob moth in pomegranate fruit because of the lack of external symptoms. In this study, the feasibility of using VIS/NIR spectroscopy as to detect carob moth infestation in pomegranate fruits is demonstrated. The samples included intact as well as infected pomegranate fruits at four different stages of maturity. Discriminant analysis of the samples was performed by soft independent modeling of class analogy (SIMCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). The results showed that in all sample groups when the samples were classified by PLS-DA, the high values were found in comparison with the SIMCA models. All the discriminate analyses were accomplished for three different sample sets: standard (only the samples handpicked at standard harvest time consist of stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3), last (only the handpicked at last harvest time including stage 3 and stage 4) and combined (all four studied maturity stages together). The total discriminant power of PLS-DA classes was approximately 88%, 90%, and 86% for standard, last and combined sample sets, respectively. The comparison among different sample groups indicated that the last sample group was predicted with the best prediction accuracy followed by standard and then combined sample group.

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