The most important limitation of the technology lies in the development of calibrations. Perhaps these can be explained by analogy with the N content of a leaf. You expect a leaf with a higher nitrogen content to be ‘greener’, but you know you can not say that a sugar cane and a corn leaf with the same level of ‘greenness’ have the same nitrogen content. In other words, different calibrations apply. Thus the NIRS technique is not so much hardware limited as ‘software’ or calibration limited. Ultimately, it will be the cost of calibration maintenance that will make or break commercial adoption in the world.