On physiological and biochemical changes of artificially aged pepper seeds

In order to find out the reasons for pepper seed’s vigor descent and its physiological and biochemical transformation laws with artificial acceleration of seed aging,some physiological and biochemical changes were investigated before and after the artificial aging of pepper seeds.The results showed that the germination rate,germination energy,vigor index,activities of POD and SOD,the contents of soluble sugar and soluble proteins were reduced gradually along the seeds aging;relative electrical conductivity and MDA in seed were raised gradually,but the dehydrogenase activities had no significant difference between the seeds of different aging time.The main mechanism for deterioration of pepper seeds during artificial aging may be the increased peroxidation of membrance lipids.