ADVANCING TECHNOLOGIES FOR GRAIN TRAIT MEASUREMENT AND STORAGE PRESERVATION

OBJECTIVE 1: Improve stored grain management, technology and processing practices to maintain grain end-use quality by controlling or eliminating adverse storage environments, insect infestations. Sub-objective 1A: Develop an insect monitoring and identification device for behavioral study and pest management in food facility environments. Sub-objective 1B: Increase efficacy of fumigation of milled and whole grain products through improved monitoring and modeling of fumigant applications. Sub-objective 1C: Increase efficacy of insecticidal aerosol applications in grain processing facilities based on measurement and modeling of droplet distribution and deposition. OBJECTIVE 2: Resolve existing issues and develop new technologies and techniques to rapidly and accurately evaluate intrinsic grain and seed quality to improve breeding efficiency, marketability, end-product use and environmental influences. Sub-objective 2A: Develop imaging methods for the detection of hard vitreous amber color (HVAC) of Durum wheat seeds as a replacement for manual wheat inspection. Sub-objective 2B: Selecting maize seeds for breeding programs using single seed near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) to improve hybrid development.