Seed borne diseases are important constraints to maize production. Investigations were carried out to identify fungal infection of maize seed and determine its effect on seed germination. Studies on the effects of fungicides and essential oils from aromatic plants on the level of seed-borne F. moniliforme and its seed to seedling transmission were also part of the work. Blotter method was used ...

A series of seed priming experiments were conducted to test the effects of different pretreatment methods to seed germination, seedling growth, and seed yield traits in maize (Zea mays L.). Results indicated that the seeds primed by gibberellins (GA), NaCl, and polyethylene glycol (PEG) reagents showed a higher imbibitions rate compared to those primed with water. The final germination percenta...

There has been some concern about using small seeds that may result from seed position on the ear or poor growing conditions for seeding hybrid maize. This study was designed to investigate the effect of seeding three commercial maize crosses (Single Cross 2010, Three-Way Cross 310 and Three-Way Cross 321) with three seed sizes (large, medium and small) under seven salinity levels of irrigation...

Low temperature is the primary factor to affect maize sowing in early spring. It is, therefore, vital for maize breeding programs to improve tolerance to low temperatures at seed germination stage. However, little is known about maize QTL involved in low-temperature germination ability. 243 lines of the intermated B73×Mo17 (IBM) Syn4 recombinant inbred line (RIL) population was used for QTL ana...

The effect of seed size on germination and early growth of maize plant, was examined within three weeks to determine the best seed size require for planting. The larger size seed produced significant growth compared to medium size and small size. The seedling height, seedling width, and seedling biomass increased in larger size seed. The significant growth observed in larger size seed showed th...

Eleven seed-borne fungal species were recorded in the 18 maize seed samples collected from 6 maize growing districts of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan. Aspergillus flavus, A. niger and Fusarium moniliforme were the most prevalent species with the incidence range up to 94, 62 & 43%, respectively. Maximum number of fungal species i.e., 10 was observed from Okara, Sahiwal and Nowshehra, ...

present study examines whether there is any beneficial effect of magnetized water application on seedling emergence of maize seeds. water from various sources like tap water, saline water (1,500 ppm), canal water, and sewerage water was treated magnetically by passing it through 235 mt magnetic fields at 3 lpm flow rate. seeds were soaked in water for 24 hours and planted in sand culture. numbe...

Chilling stress is an important constraint for maize seed establishment in the field. In this study, a type of "on-off" thermoresponsive coating agent containing poly (N-isopropylacrylamide-co-butylmethacrylate) (Abbr. P(NIPAm-co-BMA)) hydrogel was developed to improve the chilling tolerance of coated maize seed. The P(NIPAm-co-BMA) hydrogel was synthesized by free-radical polymerization of N-i...

Sunflower is a potent allelopathic plant which possesses important allelochemicals with known allelopathic activity on other plants. In this study, allelopathic effects of fresh aqueous extracts (FAE) and air dried aqueous extracts (DAE) of root, shoot and leaves of sunflower (Halianthus annuus L.) were investigated on germination and seedling growth of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and maize (Z...

In Maize (Zea maize L.), cost of hybrid seed production is directly related to the yield and quality of seed obtained per hectare of female parent. It is also important to consider the effects that a male parent can exert on the development of hybrid seed in the female parent. This effect is known as xenia. The objectives of this study were to evaluate xenia effects on 1) yield as 80K units, 2)...