Abstract
The development of procedures enabling agility and effectiveness to the analyses of seed vigor are great advances for the seed research field. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the efficiency of the Seedling Analysis System (SAPL®) to seedling phenotyping and determining the physiological potential of soybean seeds, in comparison with the information provided by traditional vigor tests recommended for this species. The characterizing of physiological potential of the seed lots was carried out based on germination tests, first germination count, seedling emergence, cold test, and electrical conductivity. The results of these tests were compared with the data obtained using image analysis with the software SAPL®, which was used to evaluate the development seven- day old seedlings. It was obtained the length of shoot, primary root and entire seedling, growth rates, uniformity, vigor index and corrected vigor index, based on different variations of the growth/uniformity ratio, namely 80:20, 70:30, 60:40, in the vigor index calculation. Analysis of images of the seven-day old seedlings using SAPL® enables phenotyping of soybean seedlings and is a consistent and promising alternative for identifying differences in vigor between soybean seed lots, equivalent to that found with traditional vigor tests.
Highlights
The soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] is one of the most important agricultural commodities in Brazil, mainly due to the volume produced and exported (Bornhofen et al, 2015)
This work aimed to evaluate the efficiency of the Seedling Analysis System (SAPL®) in phenotyping of seven-day old soybean seedling and in determining the physiological quality of soybean seed lots, in comparison with the information provided by the traditional vigor tests recommended for this species
The research was conducted with four soybean seed lots from the region of Unaí, State of Minas Gerais, characterized by the laboratory tests described below
Summary
The soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merrill] is one of the most important agricultural commodities in Brazil, mainly due to the volume produced and exported (Bornhofen et al, 2015). Seed quality has direct implication on the establishment of the crop in the field and can have consequences for production. The use of seeds with high physiological quality is essential to ensuring proper performance of the plants, contributing to the final crop yield and the product quality (Marcos Filho, 2015). Evaluating the physiological quality of soybean seeds involves manual methods, such as counting germinated seed, visual tissue analysis in the tetrazolium test and measurement of the length of seedling structures. Efficient, these methods are laborious, subjective, and prone to human error, and are often unsuitable for large-scale testing
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