Near-infrared reflectance calibrations for determining sucrose content in soybean breeding using artificial reference samples

Abstract

In food-grade soybeans for human nutrition, sucrose content is a character of interest apart from protein, because sucrose affects flavour and other soy-food properties. As determination of sucrose content through separative or enzymatic methods is not suitable for analysing large numbers of samples, the objective of this research was to develop near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) calibrations for rapid screening of breeding lines for sucrose. Conventional soybean samples have a sucrose content of 30-60g/kg, whereas high-sucrose reference samples are lacking. Therefore, both natural and artificial (additional sucrose added) reference samples with a sucrose content of up to 140g/kg were combined, and a NIRS calibration model was developed (cross-validation R 2=0.969) for sucrose. Utilizing wavelength ranges with homogeneous performance in both natural and artificial samples, a prediction model was obtained, which suggests a stable performance of the calibration over a wide range of sucrose concentrations. Thus, identification of high-sucrose soybean introgressions should be possible in appropriate segregating populations. © 2012 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.