Impact of fruit orientation and pelleting material on water uptake and germination performance in artificial substrate for sugar beet

Blunk, Sebastian; Hoffer, Jeroen; Brosda, Sandra; de Heer, Martine I.; Sturrock, Craig J.; Mooney, Sacha J.

Abstract

© 2020 Blunk et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Water uptake into seeds is a fundamental prerequisite of germination and commonly influenced by commercial seed enhancement technologies. The effect of fruit orientation and contrasting pelleting materials on germination and biological performance of sugar beet was assessed. The results indicated there was orientation dependent fruit shrinkage of 37% for the operculum side supplied by moisture compared to 4% for the basal pore side. The expansion rate of 5% compared to the original size, which was also observed for non-shrinking seeds, indicated this was a temporary effect. This behaviour has importance for the application pelleting materials to seeds. Pellets composed of materials exhibiting low levels of swelling act as a water distribution layer which increased germination rates. Careful selection of pelleting material is crucial as it has direct implications on germination speed and subsequent establishment rates.

Citation

Blunk, S., Hoffer, J., Brosda, S., de Heer, M. I., Sturrock, C. J., & Mooney, S. J. (2020). Impact of fruit orientation and pelleting material on water uptake and germination performance in artificial substrate for sugar beet. PLoS ONE, 15(5), Article e0232875. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232875

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 30, 2020
• Online Publication Date: May 14, 2020
• Publication Date: May 14, 2020
• Deposit Date: May 5, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: May 14, 2020
• Journal: PLOS ONE
• Electronic ISSN: 1932-6203
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 5
• Article Number: e0232875
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232875
• Keywords: Germination; Pellet material; Seed orientation; Sugar beet; Swelling behaviour
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4382135
• Publisher URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0232875