Chlorophyll fluorescence in pepper seedlings after seed priming and induction of salt stress¹

ABSTRACT

Chlorophyll fluorescence analysis is a method that has been widely disseminated among researchers for ensuring fast, accurate and non-destructive results. Thus, this study aimed to assess the chlorophyll a fluorescence of pepper seedlings grown from seeds that were unprimed, hydroprimed and primed with 24-EpiBL at 10^-8 M after induction of salt stress at three concentrations (0.0, -0.2 and -0.4 MPa). To carry out the experiment, the Seed Reporter Camera Spectral & Color Imaging System (PhenoVation Life Sciences, Wageningen, Netherlands) was used. Three lots of seeds of the pepper cultivar ‘Biquinho’ were used. Chlorophyll fluorescence in the seedlings was evaluated on the seventh day after the seeds were subjected to different levels of salt stress. The chlorophyll fluorescence images obtained were analyzed by the CFTI - Analysis software (version 4.5). Through the data obtained it was possible to verify that, in general, there was an increase in chlorophyll a fluorescence in seedlings grown from seeds primed with 24-EpiBL. In short, the chlorophyll fluorescence technique proved to be viable and efficient, in addition to being a practical tool that can be used to support the analysis of the quality of pepper seedlings, whether or not subjected to saline stress conditions.

Keywords
image analysis; ‘biquinho’ cultivar; seedreporter