Seed colour assessment in Brassica napus using a Near Infrared Reflectance spectrometer adapted for visible light measurements

Summary Improved oil, protein and fibre contents are associated with light seed colour in rapeseed but the lack of reliable and efficient methods to measure seed colour has hindered breeding efforts for this trait. The feasibility of using light reflectance to assess seed colour in Brassica napus was examined using scanning light reflectance spectrophotometry and near infrared reflectance (NIR). Light reflectance by seed samples from 30 doubled haploid (DH) lines segregating for seed colour increased as the wavelength of the illuminating light in the scanning spectrophotometer increased between 550 and 650 nm. The largest reflectance values were measured for the yellow seed samples; the brown seed samples were intermediate and the black seed samples had the lowest reflectance values. The areas under the reflectance curves were used to transform the spectra to single values. Average light reflectance area values for the seed colour classes were significantly different from each other. The DHs and their corresponding light reflectance area values were also used to calibrate a NIR analyzer modified with 670 and 710 nm filters. The best calibration curve used three wavelengths (670, 2190 and 2208 nm) and had a multiple correlation coefficient of 0.987. Light reflectance area values determined with the calibrated NIR analyzer for 30 randomly selected breeding lines could be used to categorize the colour of the seed samples with no discrepancies between the visual and instrument classifications. The results indicate that NIR can be used to assess seed colour in rapeseed.