Successful seedling establishment in the field is one of the first critical steps for corn grain production. Besides the use of high-quality seeds, to obtain a given crop density, it is indispensable to accurately calculate seeding rates, a process based on the results of the germination. However, since it is conducted under ideal environmental conditions, this test may be inefficient to account for seeds able germinate, but that fail to develop into viable plants in the field, where the characteristics of the substrate, humidity, and temperature are frequently unfavorable (Baldini et al. 2018).For that reason, worldwide seed quality control systems simultaneously perform additional physiological evaluations, namely vigor tests, that simulate stressful conditions to have a more realistic prediction of crop emergence in the field (Lovato et al. 2005, Baldini et al. 2018). However, the widespread plantprotection operation of treating corn seeds with pesticides has been pointed out as a factor able to considerably interfere with seed and seedling performance (Yousof et al. 2016), affecting, therefore, the precision of the estimations assessed through physiological tests. In this context, this work aimed at evaluating the degree correlation between field emergence with the results of germination and vigor of corn seeds belonging to different initial vigor and submitted to agrochemical treatment.
Material and MethodsSeedlots belonging to four corn cultivars were tested: Garra Viptera, Maximus TL TG VIPTERA, Impacto, and Formula TL. To minimize the impact that seed size may have on seeding vigor, only seeds of 18/64'' thickness and 22/64'' width (round screen) were used. Preliminary physiological evaluations of each seed lot were performed to assess their initial germination and vigor levels, and the results obtained were herein named high initial physiological quality (HIQ). Then, to obtain seeds of low initial physiological quality (LIQ), a portion of each seed lot was artificially aged in a water-jacketed chamber at 40 ± 1°C and 100% relative