Evaluación de la viabilidad de semillas en seis variedades de maíz (zea mays l.) mediante prueba de tetrazolio

Abstract

Corn (Zea mays L), is a domesticated plant, essential for more than 200 million people. Ecuador is among the 50 main world producers, being a crop of high importance, it is produced in 21 of the 24 provinces, and is concentrated in the provinces of Los Ríos, Guayas, Manabí, Loja and El Oro; the crop shows adaptability in warm environments, being less abundant in cool places. Agricultural production is highly dependent on seeds as an input for reproduction, which is why the continuous and gradual development of this field is important. Generally, farmers by habit save their own seeds for future sowings, taking into account that they are not trained to identify the viability of their seeds for sowing, the objective of this research was to evaluate the percentage of viability and germination in six maize varieties using the Tetrazolium test. 2 study factors (variety and Ag3) were evaluated and the main variables to be measured were the percentage of viability through the Tetrazolium test and the percentage of germination with the Ag3 test, however, more variables were taken in order to observe the behavior of the seedling in the field under uncontrolled conditions. A normality test was applied in this case Shapiro Wilk and bias boxes, together with a regression to obtain the correlation coefficient; In addition, a comparison of means was applied by means of an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and finally a multivariate linear model was carried out to be able to obtain the bar graphs and determine at what dose of Ag3 caused the development of the best agronomic morpho characteristics. By means of the normality test, it was shown that there are no significant differences in the two variables of the study to be measured (Viability and Germination), so it is understood that the study fulfilled the assumptions of homogeneity of the variance. Graphically through the bias boxes it was confirmed again that there is significance in both variables, although in the regression a strong correlation coefficient was not obtained, this value can be justified by the use of the hormone Ag3, which influenced the results of the same way that it did in the other variables represented in the bar graphs. It is concluded that the six varieties are suitable for the sowing of this crop in large areas because they presented a good germination capacity with an optimal viability percentage ranging from 96 to 100% for the varieties (V1 and V4), while in the varieties (V2, V3, V5 and V6) it goes from 94 to 100%. With an average of 100% as a result of the germination test in the six varieties, it was reaffirmed that the results obtained in the viability test with Tetrazolium are optimal. The application of 10 ml of Ag3 proved to have the best effect on the morpho-agronomic characteristics of the seedlings used in the research.