Deep Learning-Based Multistage Peach Ripeness Detection with Data Leakage Mitigation and Real-World Validation

Accurate fruit ripeness assessment is essential for optimizing harvest timing and ensuring postharvest quality, particularly in climacteric fruits such as peaches, which exhibit rapid and heterogeneous ripening. This study proposes a deep learning-based approach for multistage peach ripeness classification across five maturity levels (green, green-blushed, blushed, yellow-blushed, and fully yellow). Four datasets were constructed using controlled image acquisition, segmentation, data augmentation, and perceptual hashing to mitigate data leakage. The performance of AlexNet, EfficientNet-B0, and three YOLO (You Only Look Once) architectures (YOLOv8, YOLOv11, and YOLOv12) was evaluated using standard metrics, including accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, mAP, and inference speed. Results show that YOLO-based models significantly outperform classical networks, achieving accuracies between 95.25% and 98.3% and mAP@0.5 above 98.25%, while also reducing inference time to 8.1–12.7 ms compared with 722.23 ms for AlexNet and 171.87 ms for EfficientNet-B0. In a practical sorting experiment with 214 peaches, YOLOv12 achieved 92.06% accuracy, demonstrating robust real-world performance. Misclassifications were primarily observed between adjacent ripeness stages. These findings indicate that YOLO-based models provide an effective and scalable solution for real-time fruit sorting, while the use of perceptual hashing enhances dataset reliability and model generalization for deployment in agricultural quality control systems.