In a program of seed quality assurance, the evaluation of seed vigor is fundamental and necessary to the global production process outcome. The objective of this experiment was to verify the efficiency of different vigor tests for evaluation of sweet corn seeds quality towards lots differentiation and prevision of seedling emergence and storage capacity of those. Ten lots of DO-04 shrunken-2 (sh2) hybrid sweet corn seeds were submitted to the following evaluations: germination, first counting of germination test, earliness of primary root emission (32, 48, 56 and 72 hours), cold test, electrical conductivity test (50 seeds into 75ml of water, at 25°C for 4, 6, 8 and 24 hours), accelerated aging test (42°C) in distilled water (100% RH), potassium chloride saturated solution (87% RH) and sodium chloride saturated solution (76% RH). Four exposition periods (24, 48, 72 and 96 hours) were evaluated and also seed water content, field seedlings emergence and germination after seeds storage (10°C and 40%RH) during sixteen months. The electrical conductivity test (for 6, 8 and 24 hours) was the unique test efficient to distinguish vigor of sweet corn (sh2) seeds lots, but it did not present correlation with field seedlings emergence or storage capacity.
storage; seedling emergence; electrical conductivity; cold test; accelerated aging
