Near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is a rapid technique which is used within plant breeding programs for the analysis of many grain traits. This study investigated the application of NIR analysis of wort samples to select malting quality cultivars in a barley breeding program. An automatic sampling and 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. Calibrations for hot water extract, free alpha-amino nitrogen and soluble protein were developed using multiple linear regression analysis based on four wavelength terms for each trait. The correlation coefficients for both calibration and prediction data sets were highly significant (P<0.01) and the standard error of prediction was similar to that obtained by standard methods. Cultivars with known malting quality were included in the experiments and their ranking by NIR was consistent with the standard methods. The reported calibrations have been used for over four years to screen early generation breeding lines for malting quality.
Front cover illustration: This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Helix nebula, the remains of a star that once looked like our Sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible colors. In Spitzer's view of the Helix nebula, infrared light from the outer gaseous layers is represented in blues and greens. The white dwarf is visible as a tiny white dot in the center of the picture. The red color in the middle of the eye denotes the final layers of gas blown out when the star died. Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Su (Univ. of Arizona). Back cover illustration: (Top) This image taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope depicts bright, blue, newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the center of a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Image courtesy NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) -ESA/Hubble Collaboration. (Middle) This composite image shows the Crab Nebula, the remains of a colossal stellar explosion called a supernova. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in light blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical images are in green and dark blue, and the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image is in red. Image courtesy NASA, ESA, CXC, JPL-Caltech, J. Hester and A. Loll (Arizona State Univ.), R. Gehrz (Univ. Minn.), and STScI. (Bottom) This image by the Chandra X-ray Observatory shows Cassiopeia A, the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. The red and green regions show material from the destroyed star that has been heated to millions of degrees by the explosion. Image courtesy NASA/CXC/MIT/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.
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