The effect of parent plant nutrition on seed size, viability and vigour and on germination of wheat and triticale at different temperatures

Abstract

Seed was obtained from two adjacent trials of wheat (cv. Avalon) and triticale (cv. Lasko) harvested in 1990. The treatments consisted of factorial combinations of five levels of spring nitrogen (50, 100, 150, 200 and 250kg N ha-') with fungicide treatments designed to control foliar diseases. Seed was graded by size into different fractions.Application of foliar fungicides to the parent plant increased the proportion of large seed in wheat but not in triticale. Fungicide application had no effect on seed vigour (quantified as the value of Ki after controlled deterioration), final germination, median germination time (tso) or rate of germination.Parent plant nutrition altered the proportions of seed in different size categories in triticale and wheat. In laboratory germination tests, final germination of wheat increased with seed size. Large (> 3.0 mm diameter) wheat seed from plots receiving 50 kg N ha-' had a lower final germination than large seed from plots which had received greater amounts of nitrogen, but tS0 and K, were similar for all nitrogen levels. In triticale, the higher the seed weight, the higher the final germination, the faster the rate and the higher the Ki. Final germination, t50 and Ki, were all positively correlated with the amount of nitrogen received by the parent plants.Parent plant nutrition had no effect on the response to temperature of final germination, t50, or rate of germination for large or small seeds of both wheat and triticale.

Priming winter wheat seeds with the bacterial quorum sensing signal N-hexanoyl-L-homoserine lactone (C6-HSL) shows potential to improve plant growth and seed yield

“…second generation or F1 plants) performed significantly better than control plants ( Tables 8 & 9 ). Although these improvements may partially be explained by healthy plants producing better quality seeds leading to more vigorous plants in the next generation [45-46], it is also possible that the seed priming effect is acting through epistasis in which heritable changes in gene expression patterns occurring without alteration of DNA sequences [47-48] and such epigenetic changes are known to occur in plants development and as a result of environmental stress [49].…”

A Correlative Study of Sunflower Seed Vigor Components as Related to Genetic Background

“…In the literature, the correlation between seed size or weight and vigor is controversial even though seed size is generally positively correlated with vigorous seedlings and field performance [28]. Previous works on wheat have shown that grain weight or size had no significant effect on germination [29,30], while other papers have reported that seed size was correlated with final seed germination and vigorous seedlings [31,32]. In sunflower it has been shown that the effect of seed size was significant on germination percentage, the germination of large seeds being less important [33,34].…”

Can atmospheric input of nitrogen affect seed bank dynamics in habitats of conservation interest? The case of dune slacks

“…Increased availability of nutrients to the parent plant can also result in changes in seed production and quality, e.g. the production of more and larger seeds with higher germination rates (Fenner , k. et al 1992;Naylor 1993). Plants growing from larger seeds produced at higher nutrient levels have been shown to be competitively superior to plants from smaller seeds grown at lower nutrient levels (Stanton 1985).…”