Evaluation of a High-Speed Color Sorter for Segregation of Red and White Wheat

Abstract

A high-speed color sorter has the potential to help wheat breeders purify their white wheat breeding lines and white wheat exporters to meet purity requirements of end users. For this reason, a commercial color sorter was evaluated for sorting mixed red and white wheat. Ten wheat blends containing 95% white and 5% red wheat by mass were produced by mixing common cultivars of hard white and hard red winter wheat. The sorter was set to accept white wheat and reject red wheat in single pass when viewed by either a green or red filter. Percent red and white wheat in the accept and reject portions were determined by soaking in sodium hydroxide. In order to reject most of the red wheat in a single pass through the sorter at least 15% of wheat mass need to be rejected. For wheat blends with white wheat of consistent color that contrasted considerably with the red wheat contaminant, this rejection would reduce red wheat mass in the accept portion to <1%. This reduction could be achieved for most other blends when rejecting 20-25% of the mass or through resorting the accept portion. The red filter resulted in more red kernels rejected than the green filter.