New methods for detecting grain contaminants

01 July 1997

New methods for detecting grain contaminants

There is renewed hope for improving food quality and pesticide use thanks to a new method for quickly scanning grain to detect harmful contaminants.

John Chambers, of the UK Ministry of Agricultures Central Science Laboratory
and Roy Davies, professor of machine vision at Royal Holloway College, London
University, have come up with a system using algorithms to spot irregularities
in digitised images of grain. It can find grubs, weevils, ergot or other
contaminants. It is able to check about 3kg of grain in three minutes.

They are discussing how to speed up the process and use it in a robust machine.
Another scientist Bhushy Thind has devised a system for finding mites in food.