| New device
measures quality in single grain kernels |
ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Linda McGraw, (309) 681-6530, lmcgraw@asrr.arsusda.gov
November 1, 1999
The first commercially available instrument to quickly detect quality in single grain
kernels has been developed, based on several years of teamwork between Agricultural
Research Service scientists in Manhattan, Kansas, and an Illinois instrument manufacturer.
The Perten SKCS 4170, made and sold by Perten Instruments in Springfield, Illinois,
combines a single kernel hardness tester with near-infrared (NIR) technology. Perten
employees will demonstrate the device Nov. 1-4 at a meeting of the American Association of
Cereal Chemists in Seattle.
ARS researchers are using the instrument in studies to improve food quality and safety.
They originally designed the single kernel hardness tester to separate hard and soft
wheat. But the instrument can be calibrated to measure many quality attributes--such as
hardness, protein, starch, internal insect infestation, color or disease--in single
kernels. To confirm these characteristics would ordinarily require time-consuming chemical
analysis.
Now, with this first-of-its-kind technology, grain quality can be checked at a rate of one
kernel per second. For instance, if one kernel out of 100 has scab damage, this machine
will detect it. Scab is a disease that has cost some wheat growers billions of dollars in
losses. Grain inspectors
have had to rely on subjective visual inspection to assess grain quality. The infrared
portion of the new instrument performs a quick check on each kernel, measuring quality
attributes comprised of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Finding still more uses for the device, ARS researchers in Manhattan are showing that the
NIR portion of the instrument can be used to differentiate damaged and sound figs. And the
instrument can determine the age of flies, species of stored grain insects, and whether
flies or weevils have
been parasitized. This information is important for improving insect control programs.
Scientific contact: Floyd E. Dowell, ARS Grain Marketing and Production Research Center,
1515 College Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66502, phone (785) 776-2753, fax (785) 776-2792, fdowell@usgmrl.ksu.edu. USDA news release
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