Effect of storage methods on seed viability and agronomic traits of rapeseed germplasm

Major agronomic traits and oil content were investigated on 53 accessions of rapeseed to understand the effect of storage method on seeds,as well as the relationship between seed emergence rate and the agronomic traits.The seeds were stored in long-term gene bank,refrigerate cabinet and hermetically sealed desiccators respectively.Results showed that average field emergence rate of the accessions stored for 11 to 14 years were higher than that for 19 to 25 years.And the average emergence rate and 11 agronomic traits investigated were better in long-term gene bank than that in refrigerate cabinet.Those in hermetically sealed desiccators were the worst.Among the traits,CV(coefficient of variation) of total silique number,plant yield,plant weight,branch height reached more than 20%,but the CV values of silique width and oil content were less than 9%,which indicated that storage methods affected not only field emergence rate but also agronomic traits.Although field emergence rate and its correlated traits varied among three methods,it had significant positive correlation to plant height,first branches,total silique number,silique of main inflorescence and plant yield.For extremely low emergence rate of seeds in hermetically sealed desiccators,relations between emergence and agronomic traits were difficult to be identified.