ABSTRACT:
The vigor tests are important to monitor the quality of the lots of seeds, since they allow differentiate between them, providing additional information to the germination test. In this way, the objective of this study was to evaluate the sensibility of different vigor tests based on the seedling development to see the difference on the vigor seed among the lots of corn seeds cv. 'Sertanejo'. The experiment was done in the laboratoty of seed analysis, at the Agricultural Science Center, in the Universidade Federal da Paraiba. It was used 20 seed lots, in a completely randomized design, except to the emergence test in field, which adopted a design in randomized blocks. To the characterization of the lots, it was analyzed the moisture content, germination and vigor (emergence test), first count of germination and emergence, speed rate of germination and emergence, as well as the length and dry weight of seedlings. The vigor tests with greater sensitivity that rank the corn seed lots were the first count of germination, speed of germination and emergence, length of seedlings, and root.
Key words:
phisiological pontential; viability; Zea mays L
