Relationship between field emergency, water imbibing and electrical conductivity of soybean seeds

Abstract

Soybean seeds of the cultivars Doko, UFV-14 Cristalina EMGOPA-302 and FT-11 each one represented by five lots from the region of Goiatuba-GO - Brasil, were evaluated through the following tests: Humidity test; weight of 1000 seeds; germination test; germination during four days; accelerated aging; electrical conductivity through the modifield bulk method (LOEFFLER, 1981), using four samples of 50 seeds of the pure portion, without selection, imersed in 75 ml of distilled water for 24 hours at 25° C; rapid water imbibing test, using 2 repetitions of 100 seeds of each lot, which were set in trails, with individual cells, were each seed was covered with 4 ml of water and after 5 minutes the seeds which were intumesced and with the tegument separated of the cotiledons were counted. Only the tests of rapid water imbibing, electric conductivity and the four-day germination correlated significantly with the field emergency; consequenty it was possible to differentiate between the cultivars in relation to seed quality. EMGOPA-302 had the worst performance, while UFV-14 and DOKO were the best ones.