Analytical targets (markers/parameters) found in literature for potentially distinguishing organic seeds and the analytical techniques and instrumentation used for obtaining them.
| Seed tests | Analytical techniques and instrumentation | Quality markers/Quality features | References |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physicochemical analysis/Physiological seed quality | |||
| Seed viability and vigour | Machine vision | Seed size, colour, shape, texture | Rahman & Cho, 2016 [44] |
| Seed germination | Multi and hyperspectral imaging | Seed mass | Teles et al., 2019 [43] |
| Seed variety | Soft X-ray imaging | Lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates content | Shrestha et al., 2016 [51] |
| Purity | Thermal imaging | Moisture percentage | Caramês et al., 2025 [50] |
| Tetrazolium tests | Electronic nose | Spatial and spectral information of seeds | |
| Chemical composition | Moisture analyzer | Simple/complex odours associated with volatiles from seeds | |
| Moisture content | Titration techniques | Number of germinated seeds | |
| Proximal analysis | Physicochemical analysis | Physiological traits | |
| Disease presence | |||
| Damage by insects | |||
| Isotopic and elemental analysis | |||
| Stable isotope ratios | Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) | 15N/14N | Laursen et al., 2013 [57] |
| Macro-elements profiling | Inductively Coupled Plasma–Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) | 13C/12C | Westermann et al., 2011 [63] |
| Trace elements analysis | Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) | 18O/16O | Laursen et al., 2014 [58] |
| Rare elements analysis | Neutron-activation analysis | Macro-elements profiling (Na, N, K, P, S) | Ferrari et al., 2008 [61] |
| Trace-elements (Fe, Cu, Mn, Zn) | Fattobene et al., 2024 [62] | ||
| Rare elements analysis (Br, Cs, Eu, K, Rb) | Mihailova et al., 2014 [59] | ||
| Rossi et al., 2007 [60] | |||
| Spectroscopic methods | |||
| Seed variety | Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) | Metabolic Markers/fingerprinting (phytochemicals) | Terskikh & Kermode, 2011; Terskikh et al., 2005 [69, 96] |
| Seed origin | Fluorescence | 1H NMR analysis | Radulescu et al., 2021 [76] |
| Oil, proteins, and carbohydrates content | Raman | 13C NMR analysis | Gordillo-Delgado et al., 2012 [77] |
| Moisture content | Non-chromatographic mass spectrometry | Polyaromatic hydrocarbons and heterocycles compounds | Borges Lopes et al., 2021 [77] |
| Physical and chemical seeds characteristics | MALDI-TOF-MS: Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry | Spatial and spectral information of seeds | Consonni et al., 2018 [70] |
| DART-MS: Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry | |||
| Infrared spectroscopy | |||
| Near infrared (NIR) | |||
| Mid infrared (MIR) | |||
| Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) | |||
| Chromatographic and omics analysis | |||
| Exploratory untargeted metabolome/lipidome/proteome analysis | LC-MS and LC-MS/MS | Metabolites/proteins/lipids fingerprint | Oliveira et al., 2024 [87] |
| Targeted metabolome/lipidome/proteome analysis | GC-MS and GC-MS/MS | Metabolic profiling (phytochemicals) | Röhlig & Engel, 2010 [91] |
| Omics | Metabolites/proteins/lipids identification and markers (VOCs, phenolic compounds, vitamins) | Liang et al., 2023 [88] | |
| Metabolomics | Bonte et al., 2014 [88] | ||
| Lipidomics | Varunjikar et al., 2023 [90] | ||
| Proteomics | |||