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For years, X-ray radiography is in use in medical diagnostics and at airports for quick scanning of the lungs, bones and luggage. For the first time, scientists at ICRISAT and the Fraunhofer Development Center for X-ray Technology (EZRT) have used it to scan and ascertain commercially important traits in unshelled peanuts.
“The use of X-ray based technology can revolutionise agriculture research, which has been relying on age-old manual methods or time-consuming laboratory testing methods for determining crop post-harvest traits,” Sunita Choudhary, Scientist, Crop Physiology and Modelling (Accelerated Crop Improvement Programme) at ICRISAT, said.
As part of the study, novel AI-based algorithms were developed to extract an accurate estimate of the physical traits from X-ray radiographies of whole peanut pods.
With results showing good promise, the team has decided to integrate the X-ray radiography-based methods with groundnut breeding pipelines.
“Groundnut breeders at ICRISAT now spend a fraction of the usual time taken and can scan up to 100 samples in a day to pick the best variety for the season,” an ICRISAT official said.
Janila Pasupuleti, Cluster Leader (Crop Breeding) at ICRISAT, said that advanced image processing algorithms for ‘virtual shelling’ are standardized for estimating shelling percentage, kernel numbers and mass.
“We are expanding these algorithms for estimating the seed size distribution and others. So, one X-ray scan used for determining multiple traits is more cost and time-efficient than the manual process we have been following” Pasupuleti said.
Scope for other crops
The processing algorithms that allow ‘virtual shelling’ are also being explored for feature evaluation of various other crops such as rice, oats and barley, and pigeonpea for estimation of other commercially significant traits like milling recovery.
“We are also exploring the usage of X-ray radiography and tomography–based methods for testing seed embryo viability. In gene banks, a large number of precious seed samples need to undergo germination tests to check the seed viability every few years,” Sunita Choudhary said.
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