ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY IN Piptadenia moniliformis Benth. SEED LOTS CLASSIFIED BY SIZE AND COLOR

Among the most widely used tests for evaluating seed vigor, electrical conductivity (EC) stands out as one of the most promising due to its speed and simplicity. This study aimed to verify if the EC test could be used to evaluate the physiological quality of seed lots of Piptadenia moniliformis Benth. A seed lot, which was classified by seed tegument color and size, was used based on seed retention in round-hole screens, sizes 11 and 15, constituting 10 sub-lots. Prior to germination and the EC test, the seeds were immersed in concentrated sulfuric acid for 20 minutes in order to overcome tegument dormancy. During the EC test, we soaked seeds in 75 mL of water at 25 oC and tested eight soaking periods (2, 4, 6, 24, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h) and two seed quantities (25 and 50) per replicate. The EC test, regardless of the number of seeds or soaking period, was not adequate for evaluating the physiological quality of color- or size-classified seed lots from P. moniliformis Benth. .