The objective of the study was to identify the differences in pre-harvest sprouting tolerance in wheat spikes cultivars analyzed in artificial rain. Experiments were carried out in two locations of Paraná, Brazil (Palotina and Cascavel) with 12 cultivars. Spikes from plants in physiological maturation were harvested and dried at room temperature for 20 days. Ten spikes per cultivar were used and subjected to artificial rain. After the wetness duration were recorded notes from scale 1 to 11. In the next step, spikes were threshed and subjected to counting of sprouted and nonsprouted seeds. This results made possible to identify 'Frontana', 'IAPAR 53', 'ONIX', 'CD 108' and 'IPR 85' as the cultivars with the best level of tolerance. In general, Frontana was the most promising cultivar to be used in breeding programs. The use of visual grades as criteria of sprouting in the ears permitted a prompt and accurate evaluation of great number of cultivars without affecting the results of tolerant genotypes selection.
Triticum aestivum (L.); pre-harvest sprouting; dormancy
