Abstract

Speed of radicle emergence analysis was one of quick and promising technique for evaluation seed vigour but not found any successful report of this technique in rice seed yet. The purpose of this experiment was to analysis the relationship of speed of radicle emergence and other conventional vigour tests. Nine rice seed samples, from 5 varieties, with different vigour levels were used in this experiment. Seeds were tested for vigour classification using speed of radicle emergence test, accelerated aging test, electrical conductivity test and germination test. The result showed that all sample was separated into 3 groups after speed of radicle emergence test (time required for 50% of viable seeds to emergence) at P = 0.05. Speed of normal seedling test (time required for 50% of viable seeds to germinate) and accelerated aging test, however, could separate sample into 4 and 3 groups, respectively (P ≤ 0.05). Contrast to the result from electrical conductivity test, this technique could differentiate rice seed samples into 5 groups. For correlation analysis, the relationship, or coefficient of correlation; R², between speed of radicle emergence and normal seedling was 87.92%. The R² of speed of radicle emergence and accelerated aging test was -68.98%. The result indicated that speed of radicle emergence analysis was consistent with accelerated aging test but time to analyse the speed of radicle emergence analysis was less than 3.6 times.