Iranian Journal of Seed Research

The aim of this study was to investigate and to quantify the effect of burial depth on seedling emergence of volunteer canola and wild mustard. Seeds were buried in 12 different depths (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 cm) in 4 replications and seedling emergence was measured daily. Results indicated that emergence percentage of volunteer canola was around 98 % from 1 to 2.9 cm of burial depth and deeper depths decreased emergence percentage with a slope of -0.4 and reached to zero in burial depth of 10 cm. Seedling emergence percentage of wild mustard was described using an exponential model on the response to burial depth. According to the model, wild mustard seedling emergence decreased from 66 % in 1 cm depth to 0 % in 8 cm depth. Increasing burial depth leads to reduction of seedling emergence rate that it well quantified for both species. Seeds of these two species that buried in deeper soil layers from 10 cm for volunteer canola and 8 cm for wild mustard can expand soil seed bank and will not emerge. The results of this study may provide useful information in ecological weed management and prediction seedling emergence of weeds.

Seed coat color as a perfect and simple index is effective in water absorption, seed dormancy and germination. The mustard plant produces seeds with different coat color. So, in order to investigate the effect of seed coat color on germination rate, the percentage of germination and dormancy of Mustard (Sinapis arvensis L.) seeds an experiment was carried out based on a completely randomized design with four replications. Treatments were included two types of seed coat color (brown and black) and dormancy breaking treatments (Control, Potassium nitrate 0.2%, GA₃ 250, GA₃ 500 ppm and one, two and three weeks prechilling). The results showed that the differences between germination indices traits in brown and black seeds were significant. So that, the germination rate and germination percent in black seed were greater than brown seeds, but the duration of dormancy in brown seeds was greater than black seed. One week prechilling treatment had the most effect on breaking dormancy. So that germination percentage and germination rate for black seed was 75% and 0.54 respectively and these amounts for brown seeds were 58% and 0/43 respectively. Potassium nitrate and GA₃ (250 and 500 ppm) reduced germination rate and germination percent in both types of seeds. In addition, water absorption percent in brown seeds was more than black seeds. The final results showed that heteromorphic seeds of Mustard have variation in duration of dormancy, germination and water absorption percent.