Towards automated single counts of radicle emergence to predict seed and seedling vigour

The radicle emergence test for Zea mays is an ISTA-validated vigour test (Matthews et al., 2011b) which was accepted into the ISTA Rules at the Annual Meeting in Zurich in June 2011. This article will: briefly describe the background to the – radicle emergence test; provide evidence in support of the po– tential widespread use of radicle emergence as a vigour test for many species; consider how this test can make use of – automated methods; compare this approach to other auto– mated methods for seed quality evaluation and improvement.