Injury of winter soft wheat seeds as an indicator of reducing its sowing traits

Abstract

Present Russian agriculture tends to increase grain production not only due to increased productivity, but also by improving the quality of seed material. Due to the large number of injured grains in the total amount, their sowing qualities deteriorate, and the future yield decreases. The purpose of the current study is to identify the degree of the effect of seed injury on their sowing qualities. The objects of the research were the winter soft wheat varieties “Aksiniya” and “Lydia” developed in the Agricultural Research Center “Donskoy”. It has been established that it is impossible to obtain high-quality seeds without reducing grain injury during harvesting and post-harvesting processing. Seeds with a damaged hull and partly an embryo can germinate under laboratory conditions. In our trials, laboratory germination of the variety “Aksiniya” ranged from 92 to 99%, and that of the variety “Lydia” varied from 95 to 99%. The field germination rate of injured seeds is much lower than laboratory germination and it was 81 to 92% for the variety “Aksiniya”, and 92% for the variety “Lydia”. This is due to the fact that soil microflora has a negative effect on injured seeds. Seed processing increased a number of injured seeds from 11 to 17% of the total injury after a combine threshing, which resulted in a decrease of the number of sprouts and their dry weight for the variety “Aksiniya” by 7 pieces and 0.13 g; for the variety “Lydia” by 8 pieces and 0.1 g, respectively. The study of the injured seeds of winter soft wheat revealed that sprouts from injured seeds lag behind not only in growth and development, but also form a smaller weight of sprouts compared to the weight of sprouts grown from non-injured seeds. It was established that harvesting equipment injures from 11 to 39% of seeds, and the share of grain processing equipment accounts for 11–17% of injured seeds.