The quality of agricultural products relates to the internal structure, which has long been a matter of interest in agricultural scientists. However, inspection methods of the opaque nature of internal information on agricultural products are usually destructive and require sample separation or preparation. X‐ray computed tomography (X‐ray CT) technology is one of the important nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies without sample separation and preparation. In this study, X‐ray CT technology is used to obtain two‐dimensional slice images and three‐dimensional tomographic images of samples. The purpose of the review was to provide an overview of the working principle of X‐ray CT technology, image processing, and analysis. This review aims to focus on the development of the agricultural products (e.g., wheat, maize, rice, apple, beef) and its applications (e.g., internal quality evaluation, microstructure observation, mechanical property measurement, and others) using CT scanner. This paper covers the aspects regarding the advantages and disadvantages of NDT technology, especially the unique advantages and limitations of X‐ray CT technology on the quality inspection of agricultural products. Future prospects of X‐ray CT technology are also put forward to become indispensable to the quality evaluation and product development on agricultural products.

The reciprocating cutting system is one of the key parts of a tea harvester; and its cutting performance directly determines the cutting power consumption and harvesting quality of the machine. Because the structural parameters of reciprocating cutting systems do not match the tea cut; resulting in larger cutting resistance, it is necessary to optimize the structural parameters. The cricket mouth part has outstanding performance in tea tree fiber cutting; and the curved structural characteristics of the upper jaw of the cricket have been useful to improve the cutting efficiency of cutting system. Quantitative analysis of the structure of the upper jaw revealed that the arc-shaped structure of the incisor lobe would inspire new bionic blades and bionic cutters to solve the above problems. The cutting performance experiment of the cutting blade was designed for investigating the effects of inter-node number; tea variety and blade type (ordinary blade; bionic blade e and bionic blade f) on the cutting force and cutting power consumption. Experimental results of cutting performance have shown that the bionic blade could reduce cutting resistance and cutting power consumption. Tea varieties had little effect on cutting force and cutting power consumption. In addition, the orthogonal test was carried out to study the influence of cutter type with the cutting speed ratio and cutting angle on the integrity rate and missing rate of tea shoot. The field cutting experiment showed that the cutting angle was the most important for the integrity rate and missing rate of tea shoot; followed by the cutter speed ratio; and finally, the cutter type. The optimum combination of parameters was a cutting speed of 0.8 m/s; a forward speed of 1.0 m/s; a cutting angle of −3°, and using the bionic cutter e. With the optimal parameter combination, the integrity rate and missing rate of the tea shoot were 92.7% and 3.9%, which were increased by 13.2% and decreased by 6.4% compared to those under the condition of the 0° cutting angle and an ordinary cutter. As a result, the bionic cutter could obviously reduce cutting resistance; reduce cutting power consumption and improve the harvesting quality. These results would provide guidance for the design of the reciprocating cutting system of tea harvesters and other stalk cutting machinery.

Owing to their sharp teeth, crickets can eat through new shoots of the stalks of tea plants. Inspired by the special geometrical structure of the teeth of crickets, this study designed a biomimetic cutter to reduce the force and energy required to cut the stalks of tea plants. Therefore, four biomimetic cutters were considered: a, b, c, and d. Cutter a was a traditional cutter used for comparison with the other three cutters, which were biomimetic. The cutters were manufactured using 3D printing technology and assessed by a texture tester at different loading speeds (5, 10, and 15mm/s, respectively). The results show that cutter c delivered better performance compared to cutter a at loading speeds of 5, 10, and 15mm/s, respectively. However, at 15mm/s loading speed, the maximum cutting forces required for cutters b and c were 9.43 and 6.04 lower, respectively, than that for cutter a (9.021N). Similarly, the energies consumed by cutters b and c were 13.8 and 4.24 lower than that consumed by cutter a (1.225J). In addition, cutter c delivered the best results compared to others. Based on the study results, it was concluded that the biomimetic cutters can thus help to optimize the tea harvest.

Oil peony is an important oil crop, which has high quality and oil content. In order to improve the cutting quality and harvest efficiency of oil peony, the cutting equipment of the pruning machine and harvester is a key component. Also, the accurate prediction of cutting force of oil peony stalk is one of the essential processes for the design of the cutting equipment. In this article, to accurately predicted the cutting force of the stalk, the physical property parameters and chemical components were considered as influencing factors, which were used to establish the model of mechanical property parameter of oil peony stalk. The physical property parameters of oil peony stalk included the stalk diameter, internode distance, fresh weight, dry weight, relative moisture content, volume, fresh density, and dry density. The chemical components of the stalk were cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. Besides, the modeling methods, which were the partial least squares regression (PLSR), principal component analysis (PCA) couple with multiple linear regression (MLR), and grey relational analysis (GRA) couple with MLR, were used to optimize the multiple parameters (physical property parameters and chemical components). The results showed that the internode distance and relative moisture content had significant effects on the cutting force of oil peony stalk. The and values of the GRA (0.5) + MLR method were 0.801 and 0.820, and RMSEC and RMSEP values were 2.862N and 4.715N, respectively. Consequently, the GRA + MLR method could be used to predict the cutting force of oil peony stalk, which was an important basis for the design of precision cutting equipment.

To address the challenges of missed and disorderly picking in tea harvesters, this study focused on the leaf-collection pipeline and utilized Fluent simulation 19.0 software. A single-factor test identified key parameters affecting airflow velocity. An orthogonal test evaluated the main pipe taper, number of branch pipes, and branch pipe outlet diameter, with average outlet wind speed and wind speed non-uniformity as indicators. The optimal parameters were a main pipe taper of 25.5 mm, 10 branch pipes, and an inner diameter of 17.10 mm for the outlet, resulting in 10.73 m/s average wind speed and 8.24% non-uniformity. Validation tests showed errors under 1%. Further optimization on the internal structure’s extension length led to 11.02 m/s average wind speed and 8.04% non-uniformity. Field experiments demonstrated a 3.40% stalk leakage rate and 90.36% bud leaf integrity rate; the optimized structure of the leaf-collecting pipeline significantly improved the uniformity of airflow and the picking efficiency. These findings offer valuable insights and practical benefits for enhancing the efficiency of tea harvesters.