Physical properties of seeds
Size is an important physical attribute of seeds used in screening
solids to separate foreign materials and heat and mass
transfer calculations. Length, width, thickness and equivalent
diameter are commonly used measures of size. Length, width
and thickness of kidney beans varied significantly (p 6 0.05)
in the range of 11.45–16.45 mm, 6.65–7.80 mm and 4.70–
6.13 mm respectively, (Table 2). Master Bean seeds displayed
significantly higher values for length, width and thickness than
other cultivars under study. Oomah et al. (2010) reported 2007) reported sphericity of 61.03–61.28% for kidney beans.
Aspect ratio relates the width to the length of the seed, which
is an indicative of its tendency toward being oblong in shape
(Omobuwajo et al., 1999). Aspect ratio varied significantly in
the range of 0.40–0.61 among the cultivars.