Effect of Priming on Germination of Aged Soybean Seeds

The object of this study is to determine the effect of priming on the germination ability and seedling emergence of aged soybean seeds in lab and field conditions. Artificial or natural procedure for seed aging was applied in this study. One seed lot was artificially aged for 3 to 5 days at 42 with high relative humidity (nearly RH 100%), and the other one was stored at room temperature for 17 months. Aged seeds were osmoconditioned in -1.1 MPa polyethylene glycol 8000 (PEG) solution for 3 days at and air-dried. When Danyeobkong was aged for 4 days average germination was 61.5%, however, this improved to 98.5% after the priming treatment. Improvement of seed germination by priming the aged seed was consistent with large seed sized Jangyeobkong cultivar, indicating that the priming was effective in enhancing seed germinability regardless of seed size. Priming aged seeds also resulted in good stand establishment in the field trials. Germination of aged seeds of Danyeobkong without priming was 17.0%, whereas that of primed ones was 66.4%.