Seed oil determination by pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance without weighing and drying seeds

Pulsed nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which takes about 10 sec per analysis, has been used for rapid nondestructive determination of oil in oilseeds without weighing and oven drying the seeds. This has been done by measuring the free induction decay (FID) signal of solid and liquid in oilseeds. The oil values determined by this method for mustard, sunflower, and soybean seeds have been compared with the values determined by measuring the oil signal alone in the intact seeds, which takes about 2 min per analysis. Correlation for mustard is 0.988, for sunflower 0.945, and for soybean 0.931. The reasons for better agreement for mustard and the way of improving it for sunflower and soybean have been discussed.