METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DETERMINING PLANT MATERIAL QUALITY USING IMAGES CONTAINING INFORMATION ABOUT THE QUANTUM EFFICIENCY AND THE TIME RESPONSE OF THE PHOTOSYNTHTIC SYSTEM

• Main Authors: VAN DER SCHOOR ROB, JALINK HENDRIK
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 26.01.2012
• Subjects: INVESTIGATING OR ANALYSING MATERIALS BY DETERMINING THEIRCHEMICAL OR PHYSICAL PROPERTIES; MEASURING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; POSTAL SORTING; SEPARATING SOLIDS FROM SOLIDS; SORTING; SORTING INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES, OR BULK MATERIAL FIT TO BE SORTEDPIECE-MEAL, e.g. BY PICKING; TESTING; TRANSPORTING

The present invention relates to a method for determining the quality of plant material by irradiating said plant material with a beam consisting of several consecutive light pulses of electromagnetic radiation comprising one or more such wavelengths, that at least a part of the chlorophyll present is excitated by at least a part of the radiation, and for each light pulse measuring the fluorescence radiation originating from the plant material and associated with the chlorophyll transition with an imaging detector for obtaining the chlorophyll fluorescence images. The invention also relates to calculating characteristic chlorophyll fluorescence images from the chlorophyll fluorescence images that contain information about the quantum efficiency and the time response of the photosynthetic activity of the photosynthetic system of the plant material. The invention further relates to a device for recording and processing the chlorophyll fluorescence images and to methods and devices for sorting and separating plant material.