Neuro-Fuzzy System to Predict Timely Harvest in Stevia Crops

Agriculture is essential for food production and raw materials. A key aspect of this sector is harvest, the stage at which the commercial part of the plant is separated. Timely harvesting minimizes post-harvest losses, preserves product quality, and optimizes production processes. Globally, a substantial amount of food is wasted, impacting food security and natural resources. To address this problem, an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System was developed to predict timely harvesting in crops. Stevia, a native plant from Brazil and Paraguay, with an annual production of 100,000 to 200,000 tons and a market of 400 million dollars, is the focus of this study. The system considers soil pH, Brix Degrees, and leaf colorimetry as inputs. The output is binary: 1 indicates timely harvest and 0 indicates no timely harvest. To assess its performance, Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation was used, obtaining an r2 of 0.99965 and an Absolute Residual Error of 0.00064305, demonstrating its accuracy and robustness. In addition, an interactive application that allows farmers to evaluate crop status and optimize decision-making was developed.