PERFORMANCE OF NEAR-INFRARED REFLECTANCE SPECTROSCOPY (NIRS) IN ROUTINE ANALYSIS OF C18 UNSATURATED FATTY-ACIDS IN INTACT RAPESEED

This study was aimed to evaluate the performance of near-infrared refl ectance spectroscopy (MRS) in the analysis of the oil composition for fatty acids like oleic (C18:1), linoleic (C18:2) and linolenic (C18:3) in zero-erucic acid rapeseed (Brassica napus L.). Intact-seed samples of 1094 lines from a breeding programme for high-oleic acid rapeseed were analyzed by both NIPS and gas chromatography (GC). Previously dev eloped calibration equations were initially used for NIRS analyses. Th e accuracy of NIRS was considerably improved by including some samples of the actual breeding population into the original calibration set a nd developing new calibration equations. The inclusion of twenty rando mly selected samples led to a reduction of the standard error of perfo rmance (SEP) from 2.6% to 1.9% for oleic, from 3.8% to 2.0% for linole ic, and from 1.1% to 0.9% for linolenic acid. The application of the n ew equations to the remaining population of 1074 samples resulted in c oefficients of correlation between MRS and GC values of 0.95 for oleic , 0.92 for linoleic, and 0.90 for linolenic acid, Furthermore, the eff ectiveness of a selection for high oleic, high linoleic, or low linole nic acid content based on MRS data was demonstrated. The results of th is study will help potential users to choose the optimal selection str ategy in routine analysis of C18 unsaturated fatty acids by NIRS withi n a breeding programme.