Condutividade elétrica massal, individual e avaliações citogenéticas para determinação do vigor de sementes de trigo

Abstract

The quality of the seeds used in any agricultural cultivation is one of the important factors for the obtaining of a number of ideal plants and high productivity. The evaluation of the physiological potential of the seeds is essential to the quality control programs utilized by producing companies and this evaluation is realized through vigor tests. Cytogenetic studies also provide information about the quality of the seeds, allowing to identify anomalies that compromise the vigor. For the obtainment of precise results in agricultural experiments, the determination of the samples‟ size to be used is one of the main quality components of the experiments. Thereby, the objectives of this study aimed to determine and standardize the methodologies of the mass and individual electric conductivity tests for the physiological quality of the wheat seeds; detect cytogenetic and physiological alterations that occur during the deterioration process of the seeds submitted to the artificial aging and estimate the sample size, in number of seeds, for the average estimation of individual electric conductivity in different times of soaking. Five varieties of wheat seeds were used: Fundacep Horizonte, Fundacep Campo Real, Quartzo, Mirante and Ônix, subdivided into two subgroups of seeds for each variety (high and low vigor) through the methodology of accelerated aging. Each group was evaluated physiologically by the determinations of germination tests and vigor tests. Later on, the seeds were submitted to the tests to be standardized: mass electric conductivity and individual electric conductivity, in nine soaking periods (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 24 hours). For the cytogenetic analysis, the seeds from the varieties Fundacep Campo Real and Ônix were used. They were submitted to the accelerated aging process by zero, 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120 hours, at 42ºC and 100% of relative air humidity. Physiological determinations were also effectuated and the cytogenetic analyses were realized through conventional techniques, as chromosome observation and mitotic index. To determine the sample size, an interactive process of resampling was conducted with 1000 resamplings, with restitution, using different sample sizes, starting with one seed and adding a seed to each interaction until the maximum size of 400 seeds. The obtained results reveal that the individual electric conductivity test was effective for the separation of the groups of wheat seeds and the best combination was the utilization of 25 ml of soaking solution and samples of 75 seeds, during the periods of 8 and 24 hours. The individual electric conductivity test was efficient for the vigor determination of the wheat seeds with the possibility of reading with reduced period of one hour of seed soaking. The seed deterioration caused by the accelerated aging has relation with the reduction of the germination potential and the vigor of the wheat seeds from the varieties Campo Real and Ônix; the stress caused by the accelerated aging on the seeds from both varieties leads to a drastic reduction on the mitotic index and the accelerated aging leads to an increase of anomalies frequency, possibly, related to a genotypic effect. The sampling, in number of wheat seeds, to evaluate the individual electric conductivity is of 44 seeds; for groups in which the accelerated aging was not applied, it is 27 seeds; for groups artificially aged, the amplitudes are from 3 to 5 uS. cm-1 seed-1, for soaking time from one to 24 hours.