Optimizing maize germination forecasts with random forest and data fusion techniques

Traditional methods for detecting seed germination rates often involve lengthy experiments that result in damaged seeds. This study selected the Zheng Dan-958 maize variety to predict germination rates using multi-source information fusion and a random forest (RF) algorithm. Images of the seeds and internal cracks were captured with a digital camera. In contrast, the dielectric constant of the seeds was measured using a flat capacitor and converted into voltage readings. Features such as color, shape, texture, crack count, and normalized voltage were used to form feature vectors. Various prediction algorithms, including random forest (RF), radial basis function (RBF), neural networks (NNs), support vector machine (SVM), and extreme learning machine (ELM), were developed and tested against standard germination experiments. The RF model stood out, with a training time of 5.18 s and the highest accuracy of 92.88%, along with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.913 and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.163. The study concluded that the RF model, combined with multi-source information fusion, offers a feasible and nondestructive method for quickly and accurately predicting maize seed germination rates.