Desempenho fisiológico de sementes de trigo submetidas ao resfriamento como etapa de pré-secagem

Abstract

Wheat is the main winter crop in Brazil, with great economic and food importance. Seed production to meet the growing market is challenging due to climatic factors that interfere with the crop. Artificial cooling can be an alternative for seed conservation, considering that in the initial stage the use of cold air slows down the metabolic activity of seeds. Therefore, the objective of the research was to evaluate the physiological performance of wheat seeds of two cultivars at different water content and temperatures, submitted to the cooling process as a pre-drying step and short-term storage at the UBS. The experiment was carried out using a completely randomized design in a 5x3x2 factorial scheme (storage, temperature, and water content) with 4 replications. The data were submitted to tests of homogeneity of variances, normality, analysis of variance, and Tukey's test. For all tests a 5% significance level was considered. The germination of the cultivar TBIO Ponteiro begins to lose quality at 30 days for wet seeds; ORSSENNA at 30 days for wet seeds and at the lowest temperature analyzed. The vigor of the TBIO Ponteiro cultivar shows a statistical reduction at 30 days for wet seeds and without cooling; for the ORSSENNA cultivar this reduction occurs at 40 days. Both cultivars in emergence show loss in quality after 40 days without cooling. Root dry mass and aerial part of both cultivars show that cooling was able to delay the loss of physiological seed quality.