RADIOFREQUENCY DENSITY-INDEPENDENT MOISTURE DETERMINATION IN WHEAT

A technique to rapidly determine the moisture content of hard red wint er wheat, Triticum aestivum L., independent of density, is presented. The complex impedance of bulk samples at 1 and 10 MHz was used along w ith a density-independent function to predict moistures ranging from a pproximately 11 to 22% in samples with bulk densities ranging from 0.6 5 to 0.85 g/cm3. Calibration was performed on wheat of two cultivars h arvested in 1991, and verification was tested on a different cultivar harvested in 1990. Measurements of the system were compared to air-ove n moisture determinations with a standard deviation of the differences of 0.5% moisture content.