An efficient method to quantify silique (fruit) parameters in rapeseed and other crops

•The SD-method is developed to quantify the silique parameters of rapeseed (length, width and thickness).•Two ImageJ macros were created to make the processing steps automated for high-throughput analysis.•Using a medium dataset, the SD-method is demonstrated to be precise, robust and efficient.•The SD-method performs well in other crops (Maize, wheat, soybean, chili pepper and cucumber).