The priming technique has been used to promote the seeds performance in the yield, especially the low vigour and consequently to assure the uniformity of the original population. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of seed priming in sunflower achenes physiological quality, after methods application and two months after storage to commercial use. For this, we used a lot of cv. Catissol 01 achenes previously aged at 45°C for zero, 24 and 36 hours. For each lot, there achenes were submitted to osmopriming in KNO3 and polyethyleneglycol (PEG) 6000 solutions and to hydropriming with subsequent drying. Following, lots were divided into two sub-lots, the first one being immediately evaluated and the second kept under controlled conditions and evaluated two months after storage. Achenes were submitted to germination tests at zero, 15, 35 e 45°C temperatures and at water potential zero, -0,3, -0,6 e -0,9MPa and vigour tests (first counting, electrical conductivity, accelerated aging, seedlings emergence and speed of seedlings). Results indicated that during the storage, germination maintenance within the standard commercial, when not aged achenes were osmoconditioning with PEG at 25°C and osmoconditioning with KNO3 at -0.3MPa and when achenes artificially aged for 36 hours were osmoconditioning with PEG, at 15°C. There were reduction of the sunflower achenes germination and vigour from water potentials -0.3MPa and temperature of 25°C.
Helianthus annuus L; storage; germination; invigoration
