New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research abstracts
Optimal conditions for hydropriming lucerne seeds
Hui Xia Liu1,2
Zheng Gang Guo2
Yan Rong Wang2,*
1College of Life Science and Engineering
Northwest University for Nationalities
Lanzhou City, 730030
PR China
2College of Pastoral Agricultural Science and Technology
Lanzhou University
Lanzhou City, 730020
PR China
*Corresponding author: yrwang@lzu.edu.cn
Abstract Poor seedling establishment is a
major deterrent in
adopting direct seeding of lucerne because of slow and non-uniform
germination in pasture establishment. Seed priming to obtain better
crop stands could be an attractive approach. The optimal conditions
under which to hydroprime lucerne seeds were developed though a series
of experiments. This strategy will cut expenses, and make possible the
priming of seeds on a large scale without the need to handle the
dispose of large quantities of expensive osmotic solutions. The total
water weight required to prime lucerne seeds was 80–120% of original
weight of seeds and appropriate duration of water priming was 3–9 days.
However, priming effectiveness differed in various combinations of
temperature, amount of water added, and duration. A new parameter for
assessing the optimal conditions of water priming (OCWP) was the
average of germination percentage and germination index. Based on OCWP
ranking, the optimal conditions of water priming were 5°C, water
added at 90–100% of original seed weight, and 3–5 days duration.
Keywords controlled hydration; precise
addition water;
duration; priming effectiveness; temperature; water priming
A07055; Online publication date 14 March 2008; Received 11 July
2007; accepted 6 January 2008
New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research, 2008, Vol. 51:
69–75
0028–8233/08/5101–0069 © The Royal Society of New Zealand 2008
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