Effect of I2/KI water solution to wheat seeds imbibition assessed by image analysis
Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Physics, Kamýcká 129, CZ165 21 Prague 6, Czech Republic
*Correspondence: jlev@tf.czu.cz
Abstract:
Water plays key role in a seed germination due to its participation in starting of many metabolic processes that accompany the seed germination. Rate of water uptake into seeds is a usual basis for determination of the three germination phases. The water uptake into seeds during their germination was investigated by many researchers who used various methods (e.g. magnetic resonance micro-imaging, near-infrared hyperspectral imaging and visualization with I2/KI solution (Lugol’s iodine)). The method of using I2/KI water solution for this purpose is quite popular for its relatively applicability. In this paper we compared the seed surface area projection and shape development of the seeds imbibed in the I2/KI solution and in the pure water via image analysis. It was found that the presence of the I2/KI in water changes the increase of seeds volume during germination and the effect is different during the initial imbibition and during the next germination phases. The seed shape development is similar for both variants, pure water and I2/KI solution.
Key words:
germination, image analysis, imbibition, water diffusion