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Storage Environment and the Control of Viability

  • Chapter
Viability of Seeds

Abstract

It has long been known that the major factors which influence the longevity of seeds in storage are temperature, moisture content and oxygen pressure (Owen, 1956; Barton, 1961; James, 1967). There have been a multitude of empirical investigations on the effects of temperature and moisture content on the viability period of seeds. In the vast majority of cases it has been shown that the lower the temperature and the lower the moisture content the longer the period of viability. It would be unnecessary, and in any case impossible, to attempt to catalogue all the publications substantiating this statement but some of the more comprehensive recent investigations on a wide variety of species include Anon. (1954) Boswell, Toole, Toole and Fisher (1940), Brett (1953), Gane (1948), Toole, Toole and Gorman (1948), Ching, Parker and Hill (1959). Rather less work has been done on the effects of oxygen and some of the earlier work was conflicting (Owen, 1956; Roberts, 1961b; Touzard, 1961). Nevertheless, it can now be said that for most species, the higher the oxygen pressure, the shorter the period of viability (Roberts, Abdalla and Owen, 1967; Roberts and Abdalla, 1968).

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  1. Department of Agriculture, University of Reading, Earley Gate, RG6 2AT, Reading, UK

    E. H. Roberts (Professor of Crop Production) (Professor of Crop Production)

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Roberts, E.H. (1972). Storage Environment and the Control of Viability. In: Roberts, E.H. (eds) Viability of Seeds. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5685-8_2

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