Effects of controlled hydration on peanut seeds germination.

Abstract

Peanut seeds usually do not preserve their germination capacity for long periods of time. The objective of this research was to evaluate the controlled hydration technique as a means to recover peanut seeds germination capacity lost during storage. Experiments were carried out with twelve lots of peanut seeds, cv. Botutatu, of the 200/02 cropping season. At harvesting, the seeds were submitted to chemical analysis. After 2 and 8 months of storage in dry chamber, the seeds were evaluated by water content and health tests. After that, the seeds were split in two parts; one of them was submitted to a humidification process at 25 °C for 36 hours whereas the second part was not. Both were then evaluated by a germination test at 20 and 25 °C. The results showed that the controlled hydration treatment of the seeds was not satisfactory in improving their germination performance. Additional keywords: Arachis hypogaea; viability; health test; humidifying.