Soybean seed germination, vigor and field emergence.

Egli D.B.; TeKrony D.M.

Soybean seed germination, vigor and field emergence.

1995

Egli D.B. | TeKrony D.M.

Data from 26 field emergence experiments were used to investigate the relationship between soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merrill) seed germination, vigor and field emergence. Each year for 10 years, standard germination (SG), accelerated aging (AA) germination and cold test (CT) germination were measured on 12 to 52 seed lots of 5 to 21 cultivars and related to field emergence in two to four field plantings. A total of 272 seed lots were included, of which 146 were carryover seed. Standard germination was generally above 80 % but AA and CT varied from >80 % to near zero. The field emergence index (FEI), calculated for each field emergence experiment to characterize seedbed conditions, varied from 108 to 44. The prediction accuracy varied from 0 to 100 %. As the FEI decreased, prediction accuracy of all tests decreased. The prediction accuracy for SG with a critical level of 80 % was near 100 % only when the FEI index approached 100. The prediction accuracy for AA at critical levels of 80 or 90 % remained near 100 % until the FEI approached 80. Increasing the critical level for SG to 95 % improved the predictive ability to nearly equal AA at a critical level of 80 %. No test accurately predicted performance when the FEI<80. These data suggest that planting soybean seed with an AA>/=80 % or SG>/=95 % will ensure adequate performance in many field environments.

Afficher plus [+]