Relationship between Seed Germination Capacity of 10 Species of Vegetables and their Emergence in the Field

Abstract

In the years 2001-2003, research was carried out to determine to what extent seed germination capacity of selected vegetable species indicates their field emergence potential. The experiment included 10 species: white head cabbage, garden carrot, red beet, onion, cucumber, tomato, radish, head lettuce, snap dwarf bean and garden pea. The seeds came from 4 commercial seed companies operating on the Polish market. The seeds of red beet and radish from different seed companies had different germination capacities, field emergence and ratio of emergence to germination capacity, but the other species did not differ. The highest ratios of emergences to germination capacity were found for radish (82.3%) and white head cabbage (81.2%), whereas the lowest were for carrot (44.6%) and head lettuce (45.1%). The species differed by the stability of the ratio in various years of the experiment, i.e. they responded differently in the given year to the weather conditions. The biggest variation over the years were found for onion (5.3-87.7%; or 16.5x), garden carrot (21.6-99.0%; or 4.6x) and head lettuce (19.9-67.3%; or 3.4x), whereas the smallest were for radish (67.1-95.8%; or 1.4 x) and white head cabbage (65.2-97.2%; or 1.5x).

Keywords

• field emergence
• seed quality
• seed germination