Comparison of pre-treatments for inducing germination in highly dormant wheat genotypes

An effective dormancy-breaking method may be of interest to wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) breeders selecting for increased seed dormancy prior to advancing their populations in greenhouse grow-outs. The objective of this study was to identify an effective pre-treatment for breaking dormancy in wheat that did not result in seedling etiolation. In 2000, eight dormant (W98616, line 211, EMDR-4, EMDR-9, EMDR-14, RL4137, Columbus, and AC Domain) and one nondormant line (Roblin) were grown at two locations in Saskatchewan. Seeds were: (i) stored for zero to 21 wks at 24°C before incubating at 20°C for 7 d; (ii) incubated at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25°C for 14 d; and (iii) treated with gibberellic acid (GA3) (0.0006 and 0.0014 M), potassium nitrate (KNO3) (0.01 and 0.02 M), chilling, heating, chilling with 0.01 M KNO3, and heating with 0.01 M KNO3 before incubating at 10°C for 14 d. Seedling growth was observed in a duplicated growth chamber experiment. Seedling length, first inter-node length, and biomass yield data were collected from plants grown from seeds treated with four effective pretreatments. Data were subjected to an ANOVA. Six to 18 weeks of storage at 24°C were required to break the dormancy (≥ 95% germination) in dormant genotypes. Incubation at 10°C was the most effective temperature for promoting germination in dormant seeds after 10d of testing. Four pre-treatments including 0.0006 M GA3, 0.0014 M GA3, chilling with 0.01 M KNO3, and heating with 0.01 M KNO3 led to ≥ 95% germination within 10 d of testing. Only GA3 treatments were associated with etiolated seedling growth. Heating with 0.01 M KNO3 or chilling with 0.01 M KNO3, applied before incubating at 10°C in darkness, may be of interest to breeders selecting for increased dormancy before advancing breeding populations in greenhouse grow-outs. Key words: Triticum, dormancy, nitrate, chilling, heating, etiolated seedling