In Vw0 Digital Phyto Imaging (idpi) in Juglans

A major disadvantage of conventional seed radiography is that the resulting image will not distinguish full-viable seeds from full-nonviable. Empty seeds will imbibe sufficient water to appear full, but these are easily distinguished by radiography before imbibition. Full seeds, both viable and nonviable, have 25 to 35% moisture content when freshly collected. This is sufficient water to confuse interpretation due to radiopacity of water density. While the full-viable seeds will germinate, the full-nonviable ones will not germinate due to physiological rather than morphological conditions, even while they maintain a moisture content sufficient to support germination. Speculation points to distribution and availability of free water and fat as promising factors to determine if an otherwise healthy seed will germinate. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) will determine these distributions. MRI is a nondestructive, noninvasive method suitable to seed research and ultimate germination of viable seeds. Although it is a widely used medical procedure, there are only limited applications to tree seed physiology. Specific differences reported in this paper are primarily the distribution and abundance of mobile hydrogen (H+) protons in bulk free water and in lipid molecules or parts of long chains. The difference in images was obtained by using fat and water suppression techniques utilising the small differences in resonant frequencies between H+ in bulk water and lipids.