Effect of Storage Period on Seed Germination of Different Maize Parental Lines

Duration of seed storage can be one of the factors that cause seed deterioration due to natural seed aging event takes placed. The study was carried out with the objective to determine the effect of storage period on seed germination, emergence and seedling traits of different maize parental lines. Four parental lines of seeds were produced in three different cropping seasons and stored for their respective years. Each parental line seed was tested and necessary data were collected on germination characteristic, emergence and seedling traits. Result of analysis variance showed significant (p<0.001) difference within and among parental lines that produced and stored in different years for germination percentage, mean time to germination, germination index, emergence percentage, fresh weight of shoot and root. The highest germination (99.00 %) as well maximum germination curve was recorded for the CML-395 that produced and stored in the early of 2016B whereas the CML-202 produced and stored during 2012A showed the lowest germination (21.00 %), indicating that germination was decreased as the seed stored longer. The lower mean time germination (4.21 days) means the earlier to reach 50 % germination as well the highest germination index (6.01) was recorded for A-7033 which produced and stored in 2015A, indicating that the more energy to germinate earlier and likely had more vigour. Phenotypic correlation observed among germination parameters and seedling traits. Germination revealed a highly significant strong positive correlation with germination index (r=0.99) and emergence (r=0.87). Germination index showed significant positive correlation with emergence (r =0.89) and fresh weight of shoot (r =0.39), means that the higher germination index it might be had high rate and vigour. But, MTG showed significant negative associations with germination (r= -0.72), emergence (r= -0.74) and germination index (r= -0.78), indicating that the lower MTG lead to the fastest germination and emergence. The present study revealed that paretnal lines seeds which produced and stored less than in one year were showed better seeds germianted as well as emerged and followed by second years but it varied among maize parental lines and seed storage period. Our result showed that as seed stored longer duration resulted in delayed onset of germination, decreased the germination rate as well as germination index, slow seedling emergence and low weight of seedling traits. Thus directly influence the agronomic seed quality traits, since farmers need high quality of seed that enable to germinate high percentage and uniformity of seedlings under required conditions. Keywords: maize parental line, seed quality, germination, duration of seed storag