Interrelationship of Grading and Sorting Parameters of Indian Jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana L.) using Computational Simulation

Various physical attributes of jujube fruits, including axial dimensions, geometric and arithmetic mean diameters, sphericity, weight, volume, and projected areas, were analyzed to estimate their relationship with fruit mass. This analysis utilized five different models—S-curve, linear, power, quadratic, and logarithmic—for both ungraded and three size-graded categories of jujube fruits. Among the models, the power model (M = 0.984V^1.014) demonstrated the best fit for ungraded fruits, exhibiting the highest R² value (0.999) and the lowest standard error of estimate (SEE = 0.012) for mass prediction. For the graded fruits, the power model (M = 1.012V^1.005) based on the actual volume of small jujube fruits proved to be the most efficient, with an R² value of 0.996. These findings suggest that mass modelling using actual volume for ungraded Indian jujube fruits yields the most accurate predictions compared to graded fruits, which is critical for the design and development of effective and precise grading mechanisms.