Why detect seed maturity?

The  stage  of  seed maturity  plays  an  important  role  in  relation  to
seed quality.  Less  ripe  seeds are generally of much  lower quality.
The quality of  the seeds  is also hugely  inluential on  the  resulting
quality  of  the  plant.  A  good  batch  of  seeds  shows  homogeneous
seed ripeness, while a batch which shows more variation in ripeness
is usually of much lower quality.
Through the use of a maturity provision it is possible to measure the
ripeness of  the seeds, and  thereby harvest  the seeds at  the most
optimum period.

By  assessing  the  maturity  of  the  seeds  the  seed  producer  can  
anticipate  the  possible  negative  inluences  of,  for  example,  
unfavourable  climatic  circumstances.  The  variation  in  seed  
ripeness also gives  important  information on quality. This  informa-
tion is critical for planning a number of logistical processes, such as
the moment of transport to the location where cleaning and further
processing  of  the  seeds  takes  place,  and  when  the  sorting  (the  
removal of immature seeds) can occur. Harvesting at the optimum
moment  leads to fewer  losses as a result of poor seed quality and
the information received from the Seedanalyser on the variation in
seed ripeness heightens the eficiency of further processing, directly
preventing possible inancial losses for the grower.

Fluorescence

Chlorophyll  has  the  property  of  luorescence,  in  that  after  it  is  
excited  it  emits  a  speciic  and  unique  wave  length.  This  chloro-
phyll luorescence  for seeds has been developed at plant research
international (PRI), part of Wageningen UR. The technique is a very
sensitive, fast, non-destructive method for measuring chlorophyll in
seeds. Scientiically it has been shown that chlorophyll luorescence
(CF) can be used as an effective  indicator of seed ripeness: as the
quantity of chlorophyll decreases during seed maturation ripe seeds
contain smaller quantities of chlorophyll than immature seeds.

Maturity provision of seeds with the Seedanalyser

Maturity provisions with the Seedanalyser are simply and fast. Clean seed monsters of the production ield are put  in a glass Petri dish.
The  seeds  are  excited  and  the  chlorophyll  quality  of  the  seeds  is
measured.  The  Seedanalyser  performs  this  measurement  in  less
than a minute. The CF-signal corresponds with  the  ripeness of  the
seeds. Ripe seed gives low luorescence values, and immature seeds
give values of a higher luorescence. These results can be used  in
a seed ripeness report and as an indicator of quality, import and/or
export control.

The  Seedanalyser  has  been  developed within  project  in  coopera-
tion with plant research international and the seed companies. This  
collaboration has resulted in a compact measuring device that can
be  used  in  laboratories,  seed  processing  companies  and  on  seed
production locations.

Download leaflet