Equipment to assess vigor in soybean seeds using CO2 produced during respiration

ABSTRACT The adoption of quick and reliable laboratory techniques and equipment to choose the best seed lots for marketing will influence the production of soybeans with superior physiological quality, among other areas in the sector. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the CO2 concentrations produced by water-soaked soybean seeds and to verify the effectiveness of new equipment to help choose lots with different vigor levels. To evaluate the physical and physiological quality of the seeds, eight soybean lots were evaluated with the following tests: water content, weight of thousand seeds, first germination count, germination, electrical conductivity, emergence, and respiration evaluated by the Pettenkoffer apparatus and with equipment designed to measure CO2 in seeds. The results were subjected to analysis of variance with means compared by Tukey’s test at p ≤ 0.05. Conventional methods showed significant differences in vigor and viability in soybean seeds. The equipment designed was efficient in detecting CO2 produced by seeds soaked in water for 8 hours. The CO2 readings with the equipment presented satisfactory results to predict the vigor in soybean seeds through respiration.