Open AccessPotential of a single radicle emergence count in predicting field emergence of Desi chickpea seed lots as an alternative vigour test
Author(s) -
Maliheh Akbarpour,
M. Khajeh-Hosseini,
Alireza Seifi
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
seed science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.246
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1819-5717
pISSN - 0251-0952
DOI - 10.15258/sst.2019.47.3.07
Subject(s) - radicle , imbibition , germination , biology , seed testing , horticulture , crop , agronomy , botany
Single early counts of radicle emergence (RE) is a validated vigour test for four crop species. We performed this study to see whether an early radicle emergence (RE) count predicts the emergence of seedlings in Desi chickpea seed lots as well as an electrical conductivity (EC) test. Electrical conductivity measurements of 11 seed lots were highly predictive of field emergence (FE) ( R 2 = 0.626**). The radicle emergence was counted at regular time intervals of six hours, up to 72 hours after imbibition. Mean germination time (MGT) clearly predicted variation in number of seedlings in the field. This evidence supports the idea that the variation in the germination time between seed lots can be an early indicator of seed vigour. Early RE counts at 48 hours also had a high coefficient of determination ( R 2 = 0.764***) with FE. The negative correlation between EC and the single early count of RE at different germination times indicated that the two tests identified the same differences in vigour. The strong relationships between RE at 48 hours with both EC and FE supports the proposal that a single count of RE could be an alternative vigour test for Desi chickpea.