Moisture content and water activity determination of pelleted and film-coated seeds
1997
Taylor, A.G. | Grabe, D.F. | Paine, D.H.
The purpose of this work was to test the accuracy of the oven method, capacitance meter and water activity measurements to assess the water status of intact pelleted and film-coated seeds in comparison with noncoated seeds. Seeds from one lettuce (Lactuca sativa) lot and one onion (Allium cepa) lot were pelleted by six commercial sources. A second lot of onion and one lot of cucumber (Cucumis sativus) were film coated by one company resulting in three different coating formulations. A noncoated control was used as a comparison for each lot. Neither the oven method nor the capacitance meter were able to accurately determine the actual seed moisture content from intact pelleted seeds. The oven method underestimated the actual seed moisture content from film-coated seeds, while the capacitance readings provided similar or slightly lower values for film coated than for noncoated seeds. Overall, water activity measurements provided accurate determinations of water status from six pellet sources and three film coating formulations for two crops. The seed moisture content could be calculated from the water activity values with equations from the moisture isotherm for each crop. In conclusion, water activity measurements were a versatile method of assessing water status of coated and noncoated seeds on a routine basis.
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