Improved Neutron Capture Technique for Nitrogen Determination in Single Maize Seeds

摘要

Improvements to increase the sensitivity of nitrogen determination in single maize seeds were carried out using the capture gamma rays from the sup 14 N(n,gamma) sup 15 N prompt reaction. By background and pile up reductions using geometrical, shielding and electronic considerations, a relative nitrogen determination error of 11% was achieved at a 95% confidence level for typical maize seeds (3 mg nitrogen, 200 mg mass) at 60 s measurement time, i.e. a relatively fast 1440 sample per day capacity could be reached in nondestructive seed selection for crude protein. At an analysis speed of 450 single seed/day simple automatic systems at the High Flux Reactor, Grenoble, France, were constructed and used to scan the crude protein distribution of single seed populations. 11 refs. (Atomindex citation 15:060808)