Patent ID: 8321191

Claim:
A method of classifying plant embryos according to their germination potential, comprising the steps of: (a) using a scanner, acquiring sets of image and/or spectral data from plant embryos of known germination potential, respectively; (b) using a computer, associating each of the acquired sets of image and/or spectral data acquired from a plant embryo with one of multiple class labels corresponding to the embryos' known germination potential; (c) using the computer, calculating a set of metrics based on each of the acquired sets of image and/or spectral data, wherein each set of metrics is associated with a class label corresponding to the germination potential of the embryo based on which the set of metrics is calculated; (d) using the computer, applying a penalized logistic regression (PLR) analysis to the sets of metrics and their corresponding class labels to develop a PLR-based classification model; (e) using a scanner, acquiring sets of image and/or spectral data from plant embryos of unknown germination potential and calculating sets of metrics based on the acquired sets of image and/or spectral data of the plant embryo of unknown germination potential, respectively; (f) using a computer, applying the PLR-based classification model to the sets of metrics calculated for the plant embryos of unknown germination potential to classify the same according to their predicted germination potential; and (g) using the computer, outputting a result of the classification of the plant embryos of unknown germination potential to a user, wherein the result includes a positive predicted fraction (PPF), which is a fraction of embryos that are predicted to germinate among the plant embryos of unknown germination potential, and a positive predictive value (PPV), which is a fraction of embryos that actually germinate among the embryos that are predicted to germinate, for a predefined minimum threshold probability of germination (P crit ), wherein the PPV is improved when the P crit is increased and the result accounts for unequal misclassification costs.