BACKGROUND

Plant-growing conditions have been traditionally determined by quick growth and abundant harvest, and bean sprouts are not an exception.

Bean sprouts are cultivated under an inhibitory condition called shaded cultivation without exposure to sunlight. The bean sprouts produced this way tend to break down and decay quickly as opposed to naturally grown bean sprouts. The faster the growth, the faster the decay, and the slower the growth, the smaller the product. These two characteristics contradict each other. It is therefore important to determine the optimum process condition to resolve this conflict.

PROCESS

In this study the basic function for bean sprout growth was determined. A transformation of this function was used for optimization of biological growth. Time was taken as the input signal and weight growth was the response. Seven control factors were tested using an orthogonal array L ₁₈ under at two levels of noise conditions (desiccators adjusted at different levels of humidity).

BENEFITS

• Increased productivity by 43%.

• Before this experiment, it took seven days to sprout. The optimum design reduced it to four days.

• It has developed a revolutionary way to evaluate biological growth function.

• A 2.2-dB gain in the S/N ratio was achieved.

INTRODUCTION

Bean sprouts are cultivated under an inhibitory condition called shaded cultivation without exposure to sunlight. The bean sprouts produced this way tend to break down and decay quickly as opposed to naturally grown bean sprouts. The faster the growth, the faster...