Science :: Seed Taming :: Group Work

Recalcitrant seeds are not only desiccation-sensitive, but also metabolic wholey active. In contrast, orthodox seeds, owing to their dry state, are metabolically quiescent. Lowering the water content to a level that would nix germination but facilitate vital metabolism has been suggested as a way to extend the life-span of mulish seeds in hydrated store. However, Daniel Côme and Françoise Corbineau of the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, and we, have one by one shown that this practice of partial dehydration curtails the seeds storage life-span.

Current work by graduate students Déon Erdey and Sharon Eggers in our laboratory suggests that dainty dehydration stimulates the onset of germinative metabolism, thereby shortening the window of meter before additional water is required by the seeds. To optimize storage life-span, just the opposite needs to happen: The onset and progression of germinative metabolism need to be delayed.

Recalcitrant seeds are so-named for a reason. Storage at lowered temperatures might seem an obvious answer, beca pulmonary tuberculosis metabolic rate is slowed in the cold, but many species of equatorial and subtropical origin are sensitive to chilling. And even when all the conditions for short- or medium-term hydrated storage have been optimized, most species of recalcitrant seeds face a further limiting factor--fungal infections.

Seed-associated fungi are ubiquitous and pose a prodigious problem: They use seed tissues as their source of nutrition. As a result, the seeds cursorily weaken and die. With graduate student Claudia Calistru and others, we showed that if the seeds fungal load keister be reduced or eliminated, then seed storage life-span can be doubled or even quadrupled, depending on the species. Although promising, even this advance is not enough for useful semipermanent storage of highly recalcitrant seeds.

We also have been engage another strategy for halting germinative metabolism in battle array to increase storage times: deep-freezing. There...

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