The effect of post-priming treatments on longevity enhancement of primed seeds

While seed priming improves the physiological process of germination under adverse environmental conditions, it often reduces the viability and storage capacity of seeds of crops and industrial plants. Therefore, in this study, in the first place, the viability of primed and non-primed seeds was evaluated by accelerated aging test. The results showed that with increasing the duration of accelerated aging to five days, the survival rate of primed seeds decreased from ۸۴ to ۳۶% compared to the control (unprimed). Therefore, the second goal of this part of the experiment was to induce deterioration resistance and improve the viability of primed quinoa seeds under artificial aging test (temperature ۴۰ ° C and relative humidity ۷۶%) using heat shock treatments. Therefore, at the end of the prime period, the seed moisture content was reduced up to۱۰% reduction and then immediately sealed in aluminum foil bags. Each package was then immediately exposed to heat-shock temperatures of ۳۰, ۳۵ and ۴۰ ° C for ۲ to ۵ hours. The results showed that all heat-shock treatments improved the viability of primed seeds under artificial aging. The degree of induced resistance to degradation in primed seeds was highly dependent on temperature and duration of heat shock. In general, the results showed that the highest induction of viability in primed seeds under artificial aging was achieved by heat-shock treatment of ۴۰ ° C for ۴ hours. Therefore, the hypothesis of a direct correlation between desiccation tolerance and seed viability was proved in this study. Other research results which reported the effect of other post prime seed treatments on seed longevity also discussed.