Seed vigour testing provides valuable information for assessing seed lot quality. However, vigour testing has not experienced widespread use because it is labour-intensive, high in cost and the test results often vary from laboratory to laboratory. Anautomated seed vigour assessment system is presented for lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.), soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) and maize (Zea mays L.) that is objective, economical and easy to perform. The system interfaces a flatbed scanner, which captures digital images of germinating seedlings, with a computer. The images are processed by a computer to generate numerical values (i.e. a vigour index) that collectively represent the quality of a seed lot based on various statistics acquired from morphologicalfeatures of the imaged seedlings. These statistics indicate the speed and uniformity of seedling development. They include the sample mean of hypocotyl and radicle lengths, as well as the sample standard deviation of the hypocotyl length, radicle length, total length (hypocotyl length plus radicle length) and radicle-to-hypocotyl length ratio. The system was tested on lettuce, soybean and maize seedlings grown for 3 days in the dark. The results indicated that the imaging system accurately quantified those parameters to yield reproducible, objective vigour assessments.
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