FACTORS AFFECTING THE GERMINATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MONOGERM SUGAR BEET
3.3.4 The emergence test
This test (Expt 6) showed that even at warm temperatures in a glass house sugar beet emergence was erratic and often much lower than the standard germination test.
The emergences of two of the lots, 4 & 5 (Amono and Nomo) were actually lower after 27 days than the values obtained in field trials (NIAB 1980) indicating that the test may have been terminated before maximum emergence occurred. However, if it is assumed that the potential emergence is equal to the germination recorded in the standard test then varying numbers of seeds fail to produce seedlings. Thus the emergence test was effectively measuring another aspect of seed vigour, i.e. the ability of a seed lot to produce healthy seedlings within 27 days at 16°C in compost. Both emergence and seedling weights could be used to assess this. This vigour test would not be of value for field conditions on its own but if similar tests run at lower temperatures were also carried out, possibly temperature inhibition could be removed from the effects of soil factors influencing emergence.
More information about seeds which failed to emerge could have been obtained by carefully searching the compost to determine, a) the number of ungerminated seeds b) the number which germinated and died c) the number which probably would have emerged if left for longer or d) the number showing abnormal development.
In this investigation there was insufficient data to attempt to reliably predict emergence from the germination tests as Brown (1980) calculated.
FACTORS AFFECTING THE GERMINATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF MONOGERM SUGAR BEET
[Introduction & Contents] [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six] [Chapter Seven]
[3.3.1] [3.3.2] [3.3.3] [3.3.4] [3.3.5]
