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Four topics are presented on the status of water in seeds; 1) methods to express moisture content (MC), 2) methods to determine MC, 3) relationship between relative humidity (RH) and MC, and 4) utility of water activity measurements in seeds. Seed MC is expressed on a fresh-weight basis in commerce and seed technology, while dry weight basis is used in physiological or biophysical literature. Conversion equations are available for the fresh and dry weight measurements. Moisture testing methods are grouped as primary and secondary. Primary methods are direct methods in which the water is removed and determined, while the secondary methods are indirect methods that rely on a chemical or physical characteristic that changes with MC. The oven method is the most common primary technique and the electronic moisture meter is widely used as a nondestructive secondary technique. The relation between RH and MC is known as an isotherm, and three zones of water binding are observed. The RH and the seed composition, in particular the lipid content, determines the MC. Seeds with low lipid content have a greater equilibrium MC than seeds with high lipid content. Water activity, defined as the ratio of water vapor of the seed over the water vapor of pure water at a particular temperature, is related to water potential in a log-linear relationship. Water activity (aw) can be used to define the water status of any species, regardless of composition.
The production of ethanol under anaerobic and aerobic conditions is suggested as a sensitive indicator of seed aging. Seeds of sweet corn (Zea mays L. `Jubilee') and lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. `Salinas') were aged at 75% relative humidity and 45C to obtain five aged seed lots and compared to a nonaged control sample. The percent germination decreased while percent abnormal seedlings initially increased with seed aging. Anaerobic treatments were induced either by immersing seeds in distilled water for sweet corn or in a solution of 50 mM glucose and 5 mM KPO4 buffer adjusted to pH 5.6 for lettuce. Aerobic treatments were performed by placing seeds in a plastic chamber filled with a known amount of glass beads sufficiently moistened to allow imbibition. Ethanol was measured after 12 and 24 hours from lettuce and sweet corn, respectively. Aqueous extracts were analyzed by immobilized enzyme technology and verified by gas chromatography. Anaerobiosis induced large amounts of ethanol production compared to aerobic treatments. The amount of ethanol decreased with seed aging duration under anaerobic conditions while these trends were generally reversed under aerobic conditions. The ratio of ethanol produced under anaerobic compared to aerobic conditions was best able to separate differences in seed quality due to aging.
Abstract
There is considerable confusion in the literature regarding tomato fruit abnormalities variously termed “internal browning”, “gray wall”, “blotchy ripening”, and other less common terms such as “cloud” and “waxy patch”. It is difficult to determine if these names refer to one or more disorders because of the similarity of symptoms in ripening fruit. Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) has been shown to play an important role in the occurrence of various fruit symptoms (2, 3, 4), yet this factor frequently is not considered in dealing with ripening disorders (1,5,6).
Field studies were. conducted in 1992 and 1993 to evaluate vacuum planters with respect to precision placement of seeds and to separately study plant spacing and emergence uniformity on stand establishment and yield. All studies were. performed with Bush Blue Lake 47. In 1992, a cooperative study was conducted with the Experiment Station and ten growers in Upstate New York representing four makes of commercial planters. No planter was able to precision seed, and seedling emergence revealed a large tendency to clump plant, with less errors made in the form of misses or skips. In 1993, tractor planting speed was studied as a variable from 3.4 to 12.3 KPH (2.1 to 7.6 MPH) on spacing uniformity and yield. The average number of seedlings per meter of row was similar for all treatments, however, the variation in spacing between plants generally increased as planter speed increased. In research plots, in-rowspacing and emergence uniformity were studied. Plant population was held constant and three in-row spacings were. developed (1 plant 5 cm apart, 2 plants 10 cm apart or 3 plants 15 cm apart). There were. no differences in yield in this study. Daily emergence was recorded and seedlings were grouped into three categories based on their time to emergence (early, medium or late). Yield was more than twice as much from early than late emerging seedlings, while the medium group was intermediate with respect to yield.
The seedcoat permeability, uptake, and transport of model fluorescent tracers were investigated in snapbean (Phaseolus vulgaris), pepper (Capsicum annuum), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), onion (Allium cepa), cucumber (Cucumis sativus), and lettuce (Lactuca sativa) seeds. Nine fluorescent tracers and one vital stain were selected to represent a diversity of physicochemical properties (lipophilicity, electrical charge, etc.) and to simulate behavior of applied seed treatments. To study seedcoat permeability, tracers were applied to seeds as dry powders, and treated seeds were sown in moistened sand at 20 °C and removed after 18 to 24 h, a time before visible germination. Imbibed seeds were dissected and fluorescence (staining) was observed in embryos with a dissecting microscope under ultraviolet (365 nm) or visible radiation. Seedcoat permeability of species to solutes was grouped into three categories: 1) permeable—snapbeans; 2) selectively permeable—tomato, pepper, and onion; and 3) non-permeable—cucumber and lettuce. Systemic tracers that failed to permeate seedcoats during seed imbibition were taken up by roots or hypocotyls after visible germination.
Abstract
Deterioration of snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) seed quality during accelerated aging at 42°C and 100% relative humidity was accompanied by a decline in germination, radicle emergence, hypocotyl length, and ethylene production. Field emergence of 5 seed lots had a highly significant correlation with ethylene production rates when measured after 22 to 23.5 hours of imbibition at 25°. Seed lots that produced low levels of ethylene emerged poorly in the field. Results indicate that determination of ethylene production of imbibed seeds might be a useful method for detecting changes in seed vigor.
Sinapine leakage to detect seed germination potential on a single-seed basis in Brassica has been developed as a rapid test. In this test, sinapine leakage predicts that a seed is non-germinable; however, the major source of errors in this method are false-negative (F–)—i.e., the method predicted a seed was germinable because the seed did not leak, and it did not germinate. The sinapine leakage index (SLI) was used to asses the F– for any seed lot by dividing the number of non-germinable seeds that leaked sinapine by the total number of non-germinable seeds. Seed lots including cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli (B. oleracea L., Captitata, Botrytis, and Italica groups, respectively) were used to examine the F–. The leakage rate as measured by T50, the time for 50% of heat-killed seeds to leak, was linearly correlated to SLI. Cabbage seeds were viewed by scanning electronic microscopy and leaking non-germinable seeds either had cracks or were shrunken. NaOCl pretreatment has been found to increase the rate of sinapine leakage and SLI. The mode of NaOCl was due to high pH altering the seed coat permeability. Chemical analysis was conducted on isolated seed coats for pectin, tannins, hemicellulose, cellulose, phenolic lignin, and cutin. It was found that the higher SLI (more permeable) lots contained lower amounts of cutin, suggesting that cutin may restrict the diffusion of sinapine through the testa.
The purpose of this project was to study factors that influence the leakage rate and develop methods to enhance leakage of sinapine from Brassica seeds. Six seedlots (two seedlots of one cultivar each of cabbage (Brassica oleracea L., Capitata group), broccoli, and cauliflower (B. oleracea L., Botrytis group) were studied. Leakage was quantified spectrophotometrically by measuring the absorbance of the soak water at 330 nm. The onset of sinapine leakage was determined from single seeds by the visual presence (yellow soak water) caused by soaking seeds in a biological buffer adjusted to pH 10. The leakage pattern from heat-killed seeds of all seedlots was sigmoidal with a distinct lag phase followed by a rapid efflux and final slower rate. The duration of the lag phase and the total amount of sinapine leaked after 24 hours was not the same for all seedlots after adjusting for seed count, seed weight, or sinapine content. Therefore, another factor was responsible for differences measured in leakage. Embryos or seeds with cracked testas leaked faster than intact seeds, and the leakage pattern without testa integrity was biphasic. From these studies, we conclude that the testa was a major factor regulating sinapine leakage. Pretreating heat killed seeds, with up to 1.0% NaOCl for 10 minutes, accelerated the onset of leakage. The time for 50 percent of the seeds to leak (T50) decreased as NaOCl concentration increased. Leakage uniformity, as measured by the standard deviation of the distribution, generally increased as NaOCl concentration increased. The sigmoidal leakage pattern from heat-killed Brassica seeds may be attributed to seedcoat cracking associated with imbibitional swelling. A NaOCl pretreatment may have increased the permeability of the testa and, thereby, enhanced the leakage rate.