The relative humidity, germinating temperature and germinating time of sweet corn were studied in this work. The optimal parameters were as follows: relative humidity of 95%, temperature at 25℃～30℃ for 48 h, and the germination rate was about 75% at this condition. Principal component analysis was used to analyze 11 nutritional components of four groups of control (non treated), soaked, germinated, and nongerminated samples. Results showed that the first two principal components accounted for 8063% of accumulative contribution rate, and they reflected the most information of all metrics. Characteristic metrics of germinating sweet corn (including germinated and nongerminated groups) were total sugar, free amino acids, VC, VB2, VE, and Ca, which were different from the control (VB1 content) and soaked (starch, crude protein and crude fiber contents) groups. These 11 metrics could successfully discriminate the four groups of different treatments.
