Wheat color sorter

Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain which is a worldwide staple food. Wheat is grown on more land area than any other food crop. World trade in wheat is greater than for all other crops combined.

To date, more than 2.2 million hectares are cultivated globally, with an annual production of 730 million tonnes, taking up1/3 of the world's total food production. The world's largest wheat producer is China, followed by India, the United States and Russia, whose combined production accounts for 45% of the world's total production.

Wheat is one of the most important food resources as it serves as an ingredient in foods such as bread, pasta, pastry, beer, etc. With the increasing standard of living, there are increasing demands on the quality and consumption safety of grain. Physical, chemical, and sensory analyses are performed as well as visual analyses for the quality assessment of grain. The visual assessment of grain (analysis of foreign matter) cannot be replaced completely by other laboratory methods (physico-chemical and microbiological methods). This kind of inspection requires qualified personnel who can assess correctly the condition of the grain. Actually, the manual checking process is time- and labor-consuming. Fortunately, the advent of wheat color sorter results in savings of time, personnel and costs of the analyses.

Let's go through the analyzing process of the wheat color sorter.

Firstly, we should know the categories of grain quality.

• Chapped grains

• Shrivelled grain/shrunken grain

• Kernels with discolored germs

• Moldy grain

• Normal grain

• Hull

The wheat color sorter features a special system to identify and analyze the grain. This system consists of 1) a handling and image recording unit for the digital image of grain, 2) a unit for taking and preparing the microbiological impurities of the grain for digital image recording and 3) a multistage image analysis algorithm for the subsequent analysis of the digital images.

After analyzing, the wheat color sorter separates the required grians and the impurities.

Case example