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Invisible Coatings for Wheat Kernels

¹Engineering Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Grain Marketing and Production Research Center, 1515 College Ave, Manhattan, KS 66502. Names are necessary to report factually on available data; however, the USDA neither guarantees nor warrants the standard of the product, and the use of the name by the USDA implies no approval of the product to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. ²Corresponding author. Phone: 785-776-2730. Fax: 785-776-2792. E-mail: ramms@gmprc.ksu.edu. ³Grain Quality and Structure Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Grain Marketing and Production Research Center, 1515 College Ave, Manhattan, KS 66502.

It is occasionally necessary to tag wheat kernels without altering their appearance. Coatings have potential applications to tag wheat of a particular color or protein class, diseased wheat such as Karnal bunt, or genetically modified wheat. This methodology will aid in development of calibrations for sorting instruments. Procedures were developed to coat wheat kernels with invisible ultraviolet (UV) fluorescent and near-infrared (NIR) absorbing noncarcinogenic dyes. Wheat coated with UV-fluorescent compounds were identified under black light. The NIR-absorbing coating required lower concentrations of dye than the UV dyes and wheat coated with NIR-absorbing dye were identified from their NIR spectrum.