Breakage susceptibility of wheat and triticale seeds related to moisture content and impact energy

Abstract

Mechanical damage of seeds due to harvest, handling and other process is an important factor that affects the quality and quantity of seeds. Seed damage result in lower grain value, storability problem, and reduced seed germination and seedling vigor and subsequent yield of crops. The objective of this research was to determine the effects of moisture content and impact energy on the breakage susceptibility of wheat and triticale seeds. The experiments were conducted at five moisture contents of 7.5, 12, 17, 22 and 27% w.b. and at the impact energies of 0.05 and 0.1 J. The percentage of breakage of both wheat and triticale seeds increased as impact energy increased. The analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between breakage susceptibility of wheat and triticale seeds at the 1% probability level. Triticale seeds had more breakage than wheat seeds. For both wheat and triticale seeds as the moisture content of the seeds increased, the amount of the percentage breakage of seeds decreased as a polynomial. The average values of percentage breakage of wheat seeds decreased from 43.81 to 19.88% as the moisture content increased from 7.5 to 27%. Over this same moisture content range the percentage breakage of triticale seeds varied from 81.34 to 37.77%. Below the moisture contents of 17% for the wheat and 22% for the triticale the percentage breakage of seeds increased dramatically.