Primed carrot seeds performance under water and temperature stress

Abstract

Uniformity and percentage of seedling emergence of direct-seeded vegetables have a major impact on their yield and quality. Depending on temperature and soil water potential, carrot seeds performance in the field is poor justifying the use of techniques to accelerate the germination and seedling emergence. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effects of priming treatments, with and without aeration, on carrot seeds performance under water and temperature stress. Two seed lots of carrots, Brasília cultivar, were primed in PEG 6000 -1.0 and -1.2 MPa solutions, for four and eight days, at 20ºC, using two imbibition methods: priming in paper towel moistened with the respective solutions and immersion into aerated osmotic solutions. Non-primed seeds were used as control. After priming, the seeds were dried at room temperature until reach initial seed moisture content. The seeds were submitted to the following tests: germination, first count, seedling emergence in the field, germination at sub-optimal (15ºC) and supra-optimal temperature (30ºC) and germination under water stress (PEG 6000 at -0.4 MPa). Priming in -1.0 and -1.2 MPa PEG 6000 during four and eight days can be useful for improving carrot seedling emergence in the field and seed performance under supra and sub-optimal temperatures. Aeration of the peg solution was beneficial when seeds were primed at -1.2 MPa for eight days.