Digital technologies in vegetable seed quality assessment

Relevance . The shape determined by its linear parameters, the color of the surface are the most important characteristics of seed quality. The optical imaging method combined with the automatic analysis of digital scanned images allows statistically reliable differentiation of vegetable seeds by size and color parameters. The Federal Scientific Center of Vegetable Growing, together with employees of the Agrophysical Research Institute and “ArgusSoft” LLC, is developing a modern instrumental method of digital morphometry of seeds. The purpose of the work is to determine the morphometric parameters of the seeds of three vegetable crops by digitally analyzing scanned images and establish their relationship with viability and quality indicators. Methods . Digital images of the seeds were obtained using an HP Sasanjet 200 flatbed scanner, JPG file format, 600 DPI resolution. Morphometric analysis of digital scanned images of seeds was performed on the basis of the Agrophysical Research Institute using Argus-BIO software manufactured by “ArgusSoft” LLC, St. Petersburg. Results . It is shown that by selecting onion and radish seeds in size and density, their quality indicators can be significantly improved: up to 75.5% germination in onions, up to 100% in radishes with maximum batch alignment estimated by digital morphometry. The ideal shape for cabbage seeds has been determined: for full-fledged cabbage seeds, the roundness index should be more than 0.9. Further development of the technique will allow determining the optimal parameters of the size and shape of seeds for various types of vegetable crops and linking them with qualitative indicators.