Improvement of spring maize performance through physical and physiological seed enhancements
Journal Article
Afzal, Irfan. Mehmood Ali Noor. Muhammad Amir Bakhtavar. Azraf-ul- Haq Ahmad. Zia ul Haq . 2015
نوع عمل المنشور:
Masters
رابط المنشور على الويب:
المجلة \ الصحيفة:
Seed Science and Technology
رقم العدد:
2
رقم الإصدار السنوي:
43
الصفحات:
238-249
مستخلص المنشور:
Temperature extremes adversely affect plant growth and productivity. Early planting is an option to avoid heat
stress at the reproductive stage, but maize may then be subjected to chilling stress at stand establishment. An
experiment was therefore conducted to alleviate the devastating effect of chilling stress in maize hybrid Pioneer-
32F10 through pre-sowing seed treatments: magnetic seed stimulation (150 mT for three minutes), hydropriming
(24 hours) and priming with 0.5% ZnSO4 (24 hours). Treated and untreated seeds were sown at early and
optimal times in the field. Chilling stress altered maize seedling performance. All treated seeds gave better
results compared with non-treated seeds, but magnetically-treated seeds performed better than primed seeds.
Magnetic seed stimulation was more effective in inducing chilling stress tolerance in this maize hybrid primarily
by improving stand establishment, phenology, allometry, agronomic traits and yield components. Furthermore,
magnetic stimulation also significantly enhanced chlorophyll content, total phenolics, gaseous exchange
attributes, seed protein and oil contents, and reduced membrane permeability in contrast to ZnSO4-priming.
In conclusion, magnetic seed stimulation followed by ZnSO4-priming was an efficient tool for enhancing the
performance of spring maize under cool conditions.