Germination energy as a parameter of seed quality in different sunflower genotypes

Abstract

Using the standard method, we studied the germination energy of seed of seven different sunflower genotypes (five hybrids and two cytoplasmically male sterile female lines) developed at the Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops in Novi Sad. The seed was treated with the fungicides benomil, metalaxyl and fludioxonil and the insecticides thiamethoxam and imidacloprid and kept for a year in a storage facility. Analysis of variance showed that there were highly significant differences among the genotypes, chemical treatments, and storage periods. Highly significant differences were also recorded for all the interactions among the factors studied. On average, the highest germination energy was found in the hybrid H2 (93.45%), whose values of this parameter were highly significantly higher than those of the rest of the genotypes, except for the hybrid H1. Also, each of the hybrids had highly significantly higher germination energy than either of the two lines, and the differences among the hybrids themselves were highly significant. Looking at the chemical treatments, the control had the highest germination energy by a highly significant margin (80.39%). The largest difference was observed in relation to the treatments with insecticides (5.48 and 9.56%). These treatments had highly significantly lower values of germination energy than those involving fungicides. Germination energy increased in the first nine months of storage, peaking at 81.29%. After that, there was a sharp drop to 68.94% after 12 months of storing. Differences among the different storage periods were all highly significant except for that between six and nine months of storage, which was not statistically significant.