Agricultural Process and Food Engineering : Nondestructive Evaluation for the Viability of Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus)Seeds Using Fourier Transform Near Infrared Spectroscopy

Purpose: Conventional methods used to evaluate seeds viability are destructive, time consuming, and require the use of chemicals, which are not feasible to implement to process plant in seed industry. In this study, the effectiveness of Fourier transform near infrared (FT-NIR) spectroscopy to differentiate between viable and nonviable watermelon seeds was investigated. Methods: FT-NIR reflectance spectra of both viable and non-viable (aging) seeds were collected in the range of 4,000 . 10,000 cm-1 (1,000 . 2,500 nm). To differentiate between viable and non-viable seeds, a multivariate classification model was developed with partial least square discrimination analysis (PLS-DA). Results: The calibration and validation set derived from the PLS-DA model classified viable and non-viable seeds with 100% accuracy. The beta coefficient of PLS-DA,which represented spectral difference between viable and non-viable seeds, showed that change in the chemical component of the seed membrane (such as lipids and proteins) might be responsible for the germination ability of the seeds. Conclusions: The results demonstrate the possibility of using FT-NIR spectroscopy to separate seeds based on viability,which could be used in the development of an online sorting technique.