Priming and drying on the physiological quality of eggplant seeds

Abstract

We evaluated the effect of the priming with polyethyleneglicol (PEG) 6000 followed or not of drying on two lots of eggplant seeds with medium and low vigor respectively. The seeds were submitted to the treatments of priming with PEG 6000 in the osmotic potentials of -0.6, -0.9 and -1.2 MPa during 48 or 96 hours of priming with and without subsequent drying. For the soaking of seeds in osmotic solutions, these were placed over three sheets of paper boxes such germitest gerbox conditioning moistened with each solution in a 3:1 ratio. The control group was represented by unprimed seeds. The priming for both lots provided higher values in relation to the vigor through the first counting of germination, seedlings and primary root length, germination and emergence rates, emergence and dry weight of seedlings when compared to the non-primed seeds. These results were not verified for germination; significant differences practically were not observed in relation to the controls. Improvements in relation to the vigour were not higher on lot 2 than those obtained on lot 1. The priming with PEG 6000 with subsequent drying increased the vigor of eggplant seeds of the cultivar Morro Grande in relation to those non-primed, however, without differences in the germination.