Abstract
Water stress can affect germination by decreasing the percentage of germination. A study was undertaken to evaluate the influence of different osmotic potentials (MPa) on proline content and percentage seed germination of corn. The experiment was conducted in factorial with a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Seeds of two open pollinated varieties (Masmadu and Thai super sweet) and three hybrids (968, 969 and 926) sweet corn were germinated at 0, -0.2, -0.5, -0.7, -1.2 and -1.4 MPa osmotic potentials, respectively. Results show that the percentage of germination and coefficient of velocity (CVG) decreased with decrease in osmotic potential while proline content and mean germination time (MGT) increased. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) increased root length (RL) and length per volume (LPV) at low osmotic potential (-0.2 MPa) but decreased at more than -0.7 MPa. Seedling proline content appears not to be related to percentage germination but appears to be related to the decline in osmotic potential in germination media. Seed germination test at -0.7 to -1.2 MPa has the potential to be used as a vigor test in sweet corn. Key words: Osmotic potential, germination, polyethylene glycol, corn, proline content.
Highlights
Most of the agriculture land of the world is considered semi-arid, and the main limiting factor is water
Percentage germination for open pollinated varieties, hybrid 926 and hybrid 968 declined to
The high percentage germination in all varieties was at -0.5 MPa (Figure 1)
Summary
Most of the agriculture land of the world is considered semi-arid, and the main limiting factor is water. Roots are very important in plant growth as they absorb soil moisture and nutrients. Root length is often directly related to absorbed water from soil (Hamblin and Tennant, 1987). Root growth is an important drought tolerance mechanism in beans for drought avoidance and absorbing water from depth of soil, but root growth decreases in drying soil (Sponchiado et al, 1989). Root elongation and root diameter decreases at low water potentials in maize (Sharp et al, 1988, 2004). Root elongation decreases under drought stress by more than 88% in millet (Radhouane, 2007). Gholami et al (2009) reported that drought stress decreased root length in corn. Inverse root length is reduced under low osmotic potentials in triti-
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