Master of Plant Breeding, Istanbul, Turkey.

Corresponding author email: icnfsci@gmail.com

Article Publishing History

INTRODUCTION

A decrease has been reported in growth and yield of crops in residues, especially in heavy wheat residues. Reduction of grain yield can be due to several factors including climatic conditions, pathogens in soil, unavailability of nitrogen, toxic effects caused by decomposing of surface residues, and/or poor seedling establishment (Khayatnezhad and Gholamin, 2021a, Gholamin and Khayatnezhad, 2020d, Karasakal et al., 2020b). For conservation tillage (CT), tillage modifications can be used to improve soil conditions.

CT practices include the decreased types of plantation practices, such as minimum tillage (MT) and no-tillage (NT) practices, to elevate soil cover with crop residues from the previously cultivated crop (conservation technology information center (CTIC), (Alayi et al., 2020, Arjaghi et al., 2021, Esmaeilzadeh et al., 2020, Aletor, 2021). Improvement of soil surface cover usually leads to enhancement of water uptake and retention. NT as a promising practice for croplands located on the Mediterranean basin can increase water use efficiency ( Si et al., 2020).

For achieving yield potential, quality, and also profit in wheat production, attention should be paid to rapid seed germination and uniform emergence of seedlings as essential prerequisites. For achieving an optimal seedling establishment and better productivity, there is a critical need for greater and better synchronized germination  (Huang et al., 2021, Farhadi et al., 2020, Fataei, 2017). The two most important environmental problems faced by the crops are unsuitable quality and inadequate germination and establishment. Many factors influence seed quality including cultivar, genetic purity, physical purity, germinability, and vigor index. Although, there are other factors, such as genetic structure, environmental conditions, and maternal environment that highly influence seed quality (Hewitt, 2021).

Several studies have reported about the effects of maternal environment on different characteristics of seed quality including germinability, dormancy, size, and composition. Temperature, water availability, light (quality and photoperiod), altitude, and mineral nutrition are some environmental factors that have been frequently studied ( Li et al., 2021, Huma et al., 2021). However, no study has been conducted about different plantation practices in maternal environment and its effect on the produced seed quality. Thus, in the present study, the effect of different plantation practices (conservation, minimum, and no tillage) was evaluated in maternal environment on seed germination of wheat cv. Shiraz.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

This study was performed in field and laboratory of the College of Agriculture, Shiraz University (Shiraz, Fars Province, Iran) during 2011-2012 growing season. The experimental field was located in a semi-arid region (52° 46’E, 29° 50’N, altitude 1810 m ASL). Table 1 shows physico-chemical characteristics of the soil in the experimental field. The irrigated wheat was cultivated in the experimental site .The treatments were composed of conservation tillage (CT), minimum tillage (MT), and no-tillage (NT). The field and laboratory experiments were arranged in randomized complete block (RCB) and completely randomize design (CRD) types of design, respectively; with three replications in both kinds of experiments. Moldboard plow, twice-disc plow, and leveler were applied in CT treatment. In MT treatment, a combination of tillage tools including sweep plow, disc plow, and roller were used. Row planter was used to sow wheat seeds in CT and MT treatments; while for NT treatment, direct planter was used to sow the seeds.

Row and plant spacing were equal to 20 and 2 cm, respectively; and it was expected to cultivate 2.5 million plants per ha^-1 (87.5 kg seeds ha^-1). Viable wheat seeds (Shiraz cultivar) were sown in plots with dimensions of 3 × 6 m in November 6, 2011. The fertilizer broadcasting was done using 150 kg ha^-1 of triple superphosphate at sowing time and also 250 kg ha^-1 of urea (half of which was used at sowing and the other half was used at stem elongation). Manual weed control was done. Harvesting was performed in June 16, 2012, and grain in each plot was separated for laboratory experiment.

Petri and solution dishes were put in oven for 24 h at 110°C before performing the experiments. Surface of the seeds was sterilized using 5% NaOCl (sodium hypochlorite) for 5 min to prevent fungal invasion, and then, they were washed with distilled water ( Karasakal et al., 2020a, Sun et al., 2021). In each petri dish, 25 seeds were placed. Seeds were placed in 9 cm-diameter petri dishes on two layers of filter paper (Whatman No.1). The petri dishes were irrigated with distilled tap water during the experiment. Dishes were put in a germinator at 23 ± 2°C. The filter papers of each petri dish were replaced every 2 days for preventing salt accumulation  Muhibbu-din, 2020, Kabir et al., 2021).

Seed germination was recorded daily up to 8th and 15th days after sowing for 25/20 and other regimes, respectively; at the time of lack of germination. Seed germination was considered when radical emerged by about 2 mm in length (Khayatnezhad and Gholamin, 2012b, Karasakal et al., 2020a,, Gholamin and Khayatnezhad, 2020a, Sun et al., 2021). In each recording, 10 seedlings were randomly chosen from each petri dish, and sample data were obtained from their averages. The characteristics including germination percentage (Equation 1; (Khayatnezhad and Gholamin, 2020a, Omrani and Fataei, 2018), germination rate (Equation 2; (Omrani and Fataei, 2018)) radicle and shoot length, and vigor index (Equation 3; (Omrani and Fataei, 2018, Ren and Khayatnezhad, 2021)) were measured.

In Eq. (1); GP is germination percentage, n is number of the germinated seeds, and N is total number of the planted seeds. In Eq. (2); GR is the germination rate, n is the number of the germinated seeds on a specific day, and D is the number of days passed from beginning of experiment. In Eq. (3); VI, RL, SL, and GP are vigor index, radicle length, shoot length, and germination percentage, respectively.

Data were analyzed by analysis of variance and significant differences were detected between treatment means by the least significant difference test at P < 0.01 level using the SAS v. 9.1 computer software.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

According to the results, plantation practice significantly influenced grain weight such that, the grains developed in CT treatment were heavier than those in NT treatment; however, there was no significant difference between the developed grains in MT treatment and those of two other treatments (Fig. 1(a)). Although, this difference caused a variation in grain yield between treatments so that, the highest and lowest grain yield were obtained in CT and NT treatments, respectively (Fig. 1(b)). Heavy residues of the irrigated crops left on the soil surface (e.g., in NT) have been indicated to reduce kernel weight of wheat and/or grain yield due to poor crop establishment, disease transmission, and unavailability of nitrogen ( Radmanesh, 2021).

Plantation practices in maternal environment influenced germination percentage of wheat so that; CT treatments caused the highest germination of seeds, while seed germination was significantly lower in MT and NT treatments. Germination percentage of wheat seed had no significant difference between MT and NT treatments (Fig. 1(a)). Germination rate in CT treatment was also significantly higher than MT treatment; whereas the lowest germination rate was observed in NT treatment (Fig. 2(b)). Germination and seedling establishment can be mentioned as critical phases in life cycle of many plant species (Gholamin and Khayatnezhad, 2020b, Rodríguez, 2021).

Maternal environment has been shown to have strong effects during seed development percentage and germination rate in terms of various environmental factors; however no study has been conducted on plantation practices. In the study by Gholamin et al., (2021), it was found that maternal effects were predominant in determination of progeny seed size and germination characteristics. Enhancement of germination rate and percentage in CT treatment could be related to greater storage of seed. Khayatnezhad et al., (2021b) in a study reported early and better germination in heavy seeds, which can be attributed to bigger storage reserves of these seeds.

Higher seedling growth was found in CT treatment, which was not significantly different with MT treatment so that, the highest radicle and plumule length was observed in CT and MT treatments, while the lowest radicle and plumule length was obtained in NT treatment (Fig. 2). Furthermore, similar trend was observed for vigor index, where CT and NT treatments caused the highest and lowest vigor index, respectively (Fig. 3). Greater radicle length might be due to greater seed size. Seed size has been also shown to influence other characteristics of seedling growth, such as plumule length, root and shoot dry weight (Gholamin and Khayatnezhad, 2020c, Khayatnezhad and Gholamin, 2020b).

Based on the results, MT and NT treatments negatively influenced the produced seed so that, the seed developed in these treatments had lower germination percentage and rate. Thus, this effect should be considered along with other disadvantages of CT practices including low temperature in soil surface and incidence of weeds and diseases. Reduction of seed germination and seedling growth under the influence of CT practices could be due to lower seed size (as observed in our study), or higher level of inhibitory components. Thus, more studies are needed to understand these probabilities.

Table 1. Some physico-chemical characteristics of the soil in the experimental field

EC (dS m-1)	pH	OM (%)	N (%)	P (mg kg-1)	K (mg kg-1)	Texture
0.62	7.04	1.03	0.25	13.45	693	Silty loam

Figure 1: Seed weight (A) and grain yield (B) influenced by three plantation practices in the field

Figure 2: Germination percentage (A) and rate (B), plumule and root length (C),and vigor index (D) influenced by three plantation practices in maternal environment

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