Temperature Effect on Maize Germination and Root Elongation.

 

Temperature Effect on Maize Germination and Root Elongation

Omar Ali, Bryan Whittenton, Joey Williams, Fabian Watts, and Brien Henry

Corn is a versatile crop grown over a range of agro climatic zones. If producers adopt early planting to avoid high temperature and drought under rain fed systems, cold temperatures may negatively affect corn yield. Experiments will be conducted by imposing low temperatures during seedling germination. Seeds for these trials were obtained from Dekalb and Pioneer Hybrid in 2015 and 2016. Standard germination assays confirmed all seed germinated at or near 100 percent under optimal conditions. Each temperature x hybrid treatment was replicated four times in a completely randomized design with 50 seed per replicate. Seed were placed on a moistened seed germination paper, rolled, and secured with rubber bands. The samples were monitored daily to ensure that the filter paper remained moist. Replicates for each hybrid were completely randomized within the germination chamber for each temperature. In order to minimize the potential of small temperature changes within the chambers. Germinated seeds were counted and recorded. A seed was considered germinated with a radical length of at least 2 mm. Because we hope to plant earlier into potentially wet and cold soil, we evaluated seedling germination at different temperatures with the following objectives: 1. Do some hybrids germinate better at cooler temperatures than others? 2. Is there variation for root elongation at cold temps among commercially available hybrids? 3. From among the best and worst hybrids from objective 1 and conduct extensive and intensive germ time series trials across decreasing temps. We will measure germination rate as well as % germination across increasing cooler temperature. Selecting a hybrid that germinates and grows vigorously at cold temperatures could help a farmer that plants early.