Abstract

MARTINEZ, Mauricio; CARDOZO CONDE, Carlos Iván  and  SANCHEZ OROZCO, Manuel Salvador. Physiological response of tomato seeds Solanum lycopersicum L var Unapal-Maravilla and pepper seed Capsicum annuum L var Unapal-Serrano to criopreservation. Acta Agron. [online]. 2010, vol.59, n.4, pp.401-409. ISSN 0120-2812.

To evaluate the effect of four levels of moisture content (10-12, 8-10, 6-8 and 2-4 %) and cryopreservation in liquid nitrogen (LN) on the physiological seed quality of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) var Unapal-Maravilla and pepper, Capsicum annuum L., var Unapal-Serrano an experiment at the physiology lab and the cryopreservation lab of the Humboldt Institute of the International Center for Tropical Agricultural (CIAT) was carried out. A complete ramdom design with four replications for seed germination seed test and 2 replications for the seed emergence test was used. The results showed an initial high quality of seed and a drastic humidity content reduction during the first 120 minutes. Seed humidity content lower than 5%, were obtained after 5 hours to be exposed to silica gel. At humidity lower than 9.9 %, tomato seeds had a drastic reduction in viability and germination. On the other hand, capsicum seeds showed a significant reduction in germination and viability when humidity content was 2.6%. With a fast freezing treatment of seeds by immersion on LN without cryoprotectants during 30 days, there was no negatives effects on germination and viability of seeds of the two studied species.

Keywords : Solanum lycopersicum L; Capsicum annuum L; seeds; physiolgical quality; germination; viability; liquid nitrogen; criopreservation..

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