Potential new technologies for determining seed quality in Danish agriculture
PhD defence, Wednesday 8 February 2012. Merete Halkjær Olesen.
2012.02.03 |
Denmark is the world’s largest producer of spinach seeds, with a production share of approximately 70%. The majority of the seeds are exported abroad and are used to produce baby leaf salad. In order to produce top-quality vegetables, it is very important that the seeds have a high germination rate and are free of fungal, bacterial and viral diseases. There is also increasing focus on the use of disease-free seeds, so that soil-borne fungi, for example, are not transmitted to the soil, where they can thus be transmitted to the subsequent crops.
During the course of her PhD studies, Merete Halkjær Olesen carried out research into how new technology that is already used in the food industry today can contribute to new knowledge, as well as rapid analysis of the seed health status and germination capacity. Multispectral imaging makes it possible to analyse images with many different wavelengths in the visual and near-infrared spectrum. Image data can be subsequently used to distinguish between infected and uninfected seeds. Using near-infrared spectroscopy to predict the seed’s germination capacity also appears to be a promising tool for future seed research.
The PhD degree was completed at the Department of Agroecology, Science and Technology, Aarhus University.
Time: Wednesday 8 February 2012 at 12.00
Place: Lecture Theatre, Department of Agroecology, AU Flakkebjerg, Forsøgsvej 1, 4200 Slagelse
Title of dissertation: Improvement and evaluation of vegetable seed quality by the use of non-destructive technologies
Contact information: Merete Halkjær Olesen, Merete.Olesen@agrsci.dk, +45 8715 8382
Members of the assessment committee:
Associate Professor Bernd Wollenweber (chair), Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University
Senior Scientist Joost van der Burg, Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Associate Professor Christian Andreasen, Department of Agriculture and Ecology, University of Copenhagen
Main supervisor:
Senior Scientist Birte Boelt, Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University
Co-supervisor:
Associate Professor Jens Michael Carstensen, Department of Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, Technical University of Denmark
Language: The dissertation will be defended in English
The defence is public.
The dissertation is available for reading at the Graduate School of Science and Technology / GSST, Blichers Allé 20, 8830 Tjele.
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