Performance of cotton cloth substrates in laboratory sorghum seeds germination tests
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Date
2015
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Asian Journal of Plant Science and Research
Abstract
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) seed germination tests were conducted at Tanzania Official Seed Certification
Institute (TOSCI) laboratories, Morogoro, Tanzania. The aim of this study was to investigate the suitability of cotton
cloth substrates in laboratory seed germination tests. Sorghum seed samples for this study were collected from three
agro-ecological zones of Lake, Central and Eastern represented by Mwanza, Dodoma and Morogoro regions of
Tanzania respectively. Cotton cloth substrates were used as treatments; single layer cotton cloth substrates
(SLCCS), double layer cotton cloth substrates (DLCCS), and both single and double layer cotton cloth substrates
washed and sterilized at 1210C for 15 minutes before re-use. ISTA paper was included as control. The germination
results were 82.5%, 82.4%, 82.4%, 82.1% and 82.0% for DLCCS, ISTA paper, SLCCS, re-used DLCCS and re-used
SLCCS, respectively. There was no significant (P<0.01) difference in all substrates used in this study. Therefore,
cotton cloth substrates were found as suitable as International Seed Testing Association (ISTA) papers for
conducting sorghum seed germination tests in the laboratory. Since cotton cloth substrates are locally manufactured
they could replace ISTA papers which must be imported. Further work however, is required to standardize this
cotton cloth substrate, prepare protocol or standard operating procedures before adopting them for TOSCI routine
laboratory sorghum seed germination testing.
Description
Pelagia Research Library
Asian Journal of Plant Science and Research, 2015, 5(6):1-7
Keywords
ISTA papers, Agro-ecological zones, Seed production