Field emergence of differently storaged sunflower seed.

Sunflower seed treatment with fungicides has become regular measure in sunflower seed production. In recent years, along with fungicides seed is treated with appropriate insecticides in order to increase seed quality. This practice in seed production has brought out a problem of treated seed storage. Aim of this research was to determine the effect of different means of storage on field emergence of two sunflower hybrids. The trial was set during 2007 and 2008. Research was done using seed of two sunflower hybrids, developed in Institute of Field and Vegetable Crops from Novi Sad. Effect of storage conditions was carried out partly on seed kept in storage facility and partly on seed kept in chamber with control of temperature. Field emergence was evaluated immediately after pesticide treatment and one year after storage by counting number of emerged plants in the first pair of leaves. Treatments selected for the research were: control (untreated seed), benomyl + metalaxyl, fludioxonil + metalaxyl, fludioxonil + metalaxyl + thiamethoxam and fludioxonil + metalaxyl + imidacloprid. Research data were calculated using analysis of variance of two- factorial split-plot experimental design.Seed of hybrid Baca had the lowest value of field emergence when it was kept on low temperatures regime (73.75%). This value was significantly lower than values for seed sown in short period after treatment (decrease of 8.54%) and seed kept in storage (decrease for 10.95%). Furthermore, field emergence of seed treated with insecticides compared with field emergence of untreated seed (76.59%) was highly significantly lower and compared to treatment 2 (78.67%) significantly lower. Comparison of field emergence of seed submitted to same pesticide treatment and different storage conditions revealed highly significantly lower field emergence, for control and treatment 1, of seed kept in cold chamber. On the contrary, there was no significant difference of the same trait for treatment 2. Evaluated parameter for seed treated with insecticides and kept in cold chamber and storage facility compared to germination of seed sown shortly after treatment was significantly and highly significantly lower, respectively.Seed of hybrid Rimi kept in storage had highest value of field emergence (80.98%) and was highly significantly different compared to other treatments. Field emergence of treatment 4 (77.48%) was highly significant compared to control, treatment 1 and treatment 2 by 6.0, 5.51 and 5.16%, respectively. Under same storage conditions and different chemical treatment control and treatment 2 had highly significantly highest field emergence. Field emergence for seed kept in storage and for treatments 1 and 4 was significantly higher compared to field emergence of non-storage seed, and highly significantly higher than field emergence of seed kept in cold chamber. For treatment 3 there was no significant difference between treatments.