Effect of temperature and photoperiod on seedling emergence of flax (Linum usitatissimum L.)

Abstract

An experiment to determine the effect of temperature and photoperiod on seedling emergence of flax under controlled environmental conditions was carried out, using the two Linum usitatissimum genotypes Windemore and Sari-85 and 5 temperature (10, 15, 20, 25 and 30°C) and four photoperiod (complete dark, 16 h dark:8 h light, 12 h dark:12 h light and 8 h dark:16 h light) regimes, in all combinations. Total percent seedling emergence and seedling emergence rate of varieties were significantly affected by the variety, temperature and varietyxtemperature interactions. The overall percent of seedling emergence of Windemore was 29% higher than Sari-85. The highest emergence of seedlings was obtained at 30°C for both varieties as 96.8% for Windemore and 76.9% for Sari-85 and further increase in temperature resulted in a gradual increase in seedling emergence. Less than 40 and 30% of seedlings emergence were obtained for Windemore and Sari-85, respectively, at 10°C. Seedling emergence rate was fastest at 30 and slowest at 10°C. Relatively high percent seedling emergence was obtained in a 12 h dark:12 h light photoperiod in comparison to seedlings emerged in the other photoperiod condition. However the photoperiod did not significantly affected either percent seedlings emergence or seedling emergence rate. Recovery experiment confirm that exposure of seeds to various temperature had significant effect on viability of flax seeds whereas photoperiod had little effect on viability of flax seeds. © 2006 Asian Network for Scientific Information.