The application of near infrared spectroscopy to evaluate malting quality (vol 105, pg 85, 1999)

Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a rapid technique which is used within plant breeding programs for the analysis of many grain traits. This study i nvestigated the application of NIR analysis of wort samples to select malti ng quality cultivars in a barley breeding program. An automatic sampling an d data capture system was developed which consisted of a Perten filter NIR instrument with a flow through cell module operating in transflectance mode interfaced with a computer, peristaltic pump and sample changer Calibratio ns for hot water extract, free alpha-amino nitrogen and soluble protein wer e developed using multiple linear regression: analysis based on four wavele ngth terms for each trait. The correlation coefficients for both calibratio n and prediction data sets were highly significant (P<0.01) and the standar d error of prediction was similar to that obtained by standard methods. Cul tivars with known malting quality were included in the experiments and thei r ranking by NIR was consistent with the standard methods. The reported cal ibrations have been used for over four years to screen early generation bre eding lines for malting quality.