Effect of storage environments and storage time on germination of soybean (Glycine max (l.) Merr) seeds

Abstract

Soya bean (Glycine max (L.) Merr) seed germination period, like other oil seed crops is very short-lived and often reduced prior to planting time. This study was carried out to investigate the influence of storage environment and storage time on the germination of soya bean seeds. Two accessions of soya beans (NGB/TO/02/12/148 and NGB00111) were used for the study. Five hundred grams of each of the two accessions were drawn and partitioned into three parts. Samples from each accession were kept separately in three different storage environments namely ambient (control), short term and medium term conditions over a period of ten months. The stored seed samples were drawn at regular intervals and evaluated for germination test. Results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that effects of accession, storage environment, storage time and their interaction were highly significant (P<0.01) on germination of soya bean seeds. However, there was no significant difference for germination of soya bean seeds stored under medium and short term storage conditions suggesting that efforts should be made to optimise storage conditions in these environments. Moreover, highly significant accession x storage environment x storage time interaction (P>0.01) indicates that in assessing germination potential of soya bean seeds, genotype, storage environment and storage time should be given prime consideration.