Analysis of Wheat Grain Varieties Using Image Processing: A Review

Globally, wheat is the leading source of vegetable protein in human food, having a higher protein content than other major cereals, maize (corn) or rice. In terms of total production tonnages used for food, India is currently second to wheat as the main human food crop and ahead of maize. Determining the quality of wheat is critical. Specifying the quality of wheat manually requires an expert judgment and is time consuming. Sometimes the variety of wheat looks so similar that differentiating them becomes a very tedious task when carried out manually. To overcome this problem, Image processing can be used to classify wheat according to its quality. This inspection approach based on image analysis and processing has found a variety of different applications in the food industry. Considerable research has highlighted its potential for the inspection and grading of wheat. Image processing has been successfully adopted for the quality analysis of rice, cereal grains, fruits and vegetables. Likewise wheat grain quality and characteristics have been examined by this technique. This paper presents the significant elements of the image processing technique coupled with a review on the research work carried out by various researchers in the field of quality information of wheat varieties.