Accelerated Aging Affects the Germination Physiology of Wheat Seeds

Abstract

In the present piece of work, the caryopses of two wheat varieties (HUR-468 and HUW-234) were taken to study the effects of aging during germination. Accelerated aging (artificial aging) treatments were created by keeping the seeds (with initial moisture content of 12%) at 40o C and relative humidity of 90-95% for 24, 42, 72, 96, 120, 144, 168 and 192h periods. Seeds without any ageing treatment were considered as control (T1 ). The parameters like germination percentage, speed of germination (N), mean germination time (MGT), shoot and root lengths, root numbers, fresh and dry weights, α-amylase activity and soluble insoluble sugar contents were studied upto 10 days after sowing (DAS) in artificially aged and non aged seeds during germination. Result suggested that aging affects the whole process of germination of seeds. The maximum values of the studied parameters were obtained from the 24h aged seeds followed by control and 42h aged seeds in both the varieties. Among the two varieties HUW-234 showed better performance for the above studied parameters.