An automated system for vigor testing three-day-old soybean seedings

An automated system for vigor testing three-day-old soybean seedings

2003

A:PS

An image processing computer application to automatically assess the vigour of three-day-old soyabean (Glycine max cv. Kottman) seedlings was developed. The software operates on acquired digital images of soyabean seed lots placed on a paper towel. Soyabean seedlings were extracted away from the paper towel and converted into various digital representations. These representations were used to analyse the seedlings and segment them into normal and abnormal categories. The normal seedlings were further processed so that a one-pixel-wide summary structure of the shape of the seedling was produced. From this summary structure, the software classified the seedlings into six type categories based on their shape. Each normal seedling was processed to remove the cotyledon portion of the summary structure based on the type category it fell into. The remaining summary structure, with the cotyledon removed, was then used to compute the length of each seedling in pixels. From these length measurements, speed of growth and uniformity of growth values were computed. These two values were normalized and combined into a zero to 1000 vigour index for the seed lot. Combined with the post-processing corrective features, this computer software was able to achieve highly accurate and standardized measurements of each soyabean seedling, providing an alternative to the current method of manually measuring soyabean seedlings for speed and uniformity of growth when performing a vigour test.

v.31(3):701-713, SEED SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Research > Published Articles