Image analysis is a very promising technique to determine damage in seeds, which can result in germination and vigor losses. This precise method examines seeds individually using enlarged images in which damaged areas, as well their exact location and extension, can be found and examined in detail. Since this is a non-destructive method, analyzed seeds can be submitted to physiological tests to establish the relationship between damage and quality loss. The goal of this research was to study the efficiency of the image analysis technique, by the X-ray test, to identify weathering damage in soybean seeds, compared with the tetrazolium test. Seeds of different lots of soybean, cultivar BRS 184, were submitted to the X-ray test and, consecutively, used for the first count of the germination test, in order to determine the possible relationship between cause and effect. Simultaneously, the X-ray test was compared with the tetrazolium test. For the interpretation of X-ray test, the severity and location of weathering damage was considered. The results showed that image analysis, by the X-ray test, was efficient in detecting weathering damage in soybean seeds.
X ray; seed quality; Glycine max ( L.) Merrill
