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ARS Home » Plains Area » Manhattan, Kansas » Center for Grain and Animal Health Research » Stored Product Insect and Engineering Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #411327
Research Project: Advancing Technologies for Grain Trait Measurement and Storage Preservation

Location: Stored Product Insect and Engineering Research

Title: Rapid single flax (Linum usitatissimum) seed phenotyping of oil and other quality traits using single kernel near infrared spectroscopy

Author
item GOKHAN, HACISALIHOGLU - Florida A & M University
item Armstrong, Paul
item MENDOZA, TIFFANY - Kansas State University

Submitted to: Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/1/2024
Publication Date: 6/16/2024
Citation: Gokhan, H., Armstrong, P.R., Mendoza, T.P. 2024. Rapid single flax (Linum usitatissimum) seed phenotyping of oil and other quality traits using single kernel near infrared spectroscopy. Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society. https://doi.org/10.1002/aocs.12875.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/aocs.12875

Interpretive Summary: Flax (Linum usitatissimum), an oilseed crop grown in the Northwest United States and worldwide, is highly beneficial for human health, food, and fiber. Its health benefits are likely due to its high levels of protein and omega-3 oil content. Nutrient composition of seeds is thus an important aspect of flax affecting end-use quality and is often used by breeders to select lines of interest. Current methods for estimating protein and oil content are time-consuming, destructive, and require the use of hazardous chemicals; however, the use of single-kernel near infrared (SKNIR) spectroscopy could be used to rapidly predict oil, weight, and protein concentration of flax seeds while overcoming these hurdles. Our study showed that SKNIR provided reliable measurements all three parameters of flax seeds at levels of accuracy that could provide a good screening tool for breeders and end-users. All three measurements can be done simultaneously further enhancing the appeal of the SKNIR method as a tool for characterizing flax attributes.

Technical Abstract: The growing interest in the rapid measurement of seed composition using single-kernel near infrared (SKNIR) spectroscopy as a nondestructive measurement technique allows fast and eco-friendly analysis of sample seed variance that can have effects on breeding and end-use processing. Flax (Linum usitatissimum), an oilseed crop grown in the Northwest United States and worldwide, is highly beneficial for human health, food, and fiber. Its health benefits include its high protein and omega-3 fatty acids content. Therefore, seed composition profiles are an important aspect of breeding. The goals of this research were the development of single seed near infrared calibration models for protein, oil, and weight of intact flax seeds. In this study, SKNIR spectroscopy was used on a diverse set of flax accessions comprising of 306 samples to create prediction models on a custom built SKNIR instrument. Spectra data and reference protein, oil, and weight were used to build partial least squares (PLS) models. Calibration models provided reasonable prediction of these traits and could be used for screening purposes. PLS statistics were oil (R2= 0.82, SEP= 1.72), weight (R2= 0.74, SEP= 0.71), and protein (R2= 0.62, SEP= 0.96) for validation data sets comprising of approximately one-third of the total sample number. In conclusion, prediction models showed that SKNIR spectroscopy could be a very beneficial nondestructive technique to determine oil and weight as well as rapid screening of protein in single flax seeds.