BioFeature: new crop development technology

摘要

The development of crops with value-added, specialty traits has long been a goal of the biotechnology industry, which might now have a serious challenger with technology offered by Brimrose Corp. of America. The company has brought to market a machine named 'Seed Meister,' which uses Acoustic Optic Tunable Filter Near Infrared (AOTF-NIR) technology and chemometrics to sort up to 45 individual seeds per minute according to their oil, protein, starch, sugar, moisture and oleic acid content--all qualities of prime nutritional interest. So far, it has been shown to work on major crops such as maize, soybeans, peanuts and coffee. The availability of this information on a seed-by-seed basis allows plant breeders to sort early generation seeds for maximumpredetermined quality, such as high oil. With this nondestructive selection process, only those seeds with desired qualities are chosen for future growing trials.