Seeds in the Air – Modelling of fluidised bed drying of high-quality cabbage seeds

Summary

High-quality seeds are essential for successful crop production, forming the basis of most of our food. Seed breeding companies are challenged by the need to produce more and more high-quality seeds. Many dedicated treatments and drying steps are therefore applied after harvest. However, drying treatments have not yet been intensively studied. We investigated drying of cabbage seeds by modelling how quickly seeds dry and how well they germinate afterwards. For validation experiments, we combined a small-scale dryer with in-line measurements and a humidifier to control the air temperature and relative humidity. A mechanistic model was developed describing heat and mass transfer during drying. Additionally, a statistical model was employed to describe the germination quality data after drying. These models were combined to develop process and state diagrams that predict optimal cabbage seed drying. This could result in new best practices for industrial seed drying, increasing throughput for high-quality seeds.