Study on the Geographic Traceability and Growth Age of Panax ginseng C. A. Meyer Base on an Electronic Nose and Fourier Infrared Spectroscopy

During ginseng selection, marketing promotion, and sales, it is imperative to expeditiously differentiate the overall quality grades, identify the geographic traces and determine the growth ages. This facilitates the selection of the most appropriate quality grade for each product, thereby ensuring the most efficacious marketing strategy. In this study, a new method is proposed and developed for the classification of ginsengs with diverse geographical traceability and with various growth ages by combining an electronic nose (E-nose) system and machine learning with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) as a calibration technology. An investigation has been carried out to discover the differences in the secondary metabolites and odor of three types of ginseng with different geographic traceability and three growth ages of ginseng from the same geographic traceability site. In the proposed method, five types of ginseng samples have been successfully tested. The optimal Mean-SVM model combined with an E-nose system classified ginseng samples with different geographic traceability and different growth years with accuracies of 100% and 82% in the training and test sets, respectively. These results have significant implications for ginseng’s geographic traceability, growth age determination, and overall quality control. It is believed that the future implementation of the proposed method would significantly protect the health and economic interests of consumers as well as promoting the use of an E-nose in the market surveillance of consumable products such as ginseng and other foods.