I am currently working with S. oleraceus and I would like to know if there is a practical method to accurately counting the seeds other than weighing them or simply counting one by one?
Thank you in advance.
There are seed counting machines available, but it may not be practical (your requirement in the question) to purchase one for a single counting effort.
You could take spread the seeds on a tray, photograph them, then use image processing software to detect groups of pixels that resemble seeds. Root imaging software exists that can do a similar job. Again, expense and development may be too great to justify the work.
My immediate thought was to weigh out a suitable (small) mass of seeds, then count them. Calculate the number of seeds per milligram. (Given these are small seeds milligrams is the most suitable unit of mass.) If this is for publication purposes, you will have to replicate your measurements until the variability around the mean number of seeds per milligram is acceptable.
Alternatively, count 100 seeds, weigh them. If this is below the limit of your balance, count out another 100 seeds. Continue until you get an accurate response on the balance.
Sometimes*, research involves doing tedious jobs for a long time, with little apparent return on your effort.
*Sometimes = quite a lot of the time really, especially as a student.
Matthew Wheal Lucky, I have a professional Cannon Camera with a very good macro lens for just the occasion. I'll look into the Image software alternatives, thank you.
If you'd like to go the image software route check out ImageJ. The software is free and counting seeds with it is relatively straightforward:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c68qIz_ftw&ab_channel=ChengIan
https://www.researchgate.net/post/how_can_count_tiny_seed_in_fiji_imageJ
I'm not sure how much the pappus would impact the results, though. You may need to play a bit with the thresholding (B&W or color) to get it right.
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