Study on possibility of predict seedling farm emergence and establishment of dryland barley by standard germination test

This research was done to evaluate the ability of standard germination test to predict emergence and establishment of barley seedlings in farm. The experiment was conducted under both laboratory and farm conditions at Razi University during 2013-14. In laboratory, eight seed lots of dryland barley were compared in a standard germination test based on completely randomized design and different indices related to seed and seedling vigor were measured. These seed lots were also planted under farm condition as a randomized complete block design and percentage and rate of seedling emergence were evaluated. The results of laboratory test showed that the seed lots were significantly different in final germination percentage, normal seedlings percentage, daily germination rate, root length, root dry weight, shoot dry weight and seedling vigor index. Orthogonal comparisons of data from the laboratory and the farm experiments showed that the new seed lots had higher germination and vigor characteristics than the old seed lots. In the correlation analysis between the measured traits in the farm with the laboratory conditions showed that the percentage and rate of seedling emergence in the farm test had higher correlations with final germination percentage, normal seedling percentage and daily germination rate in the laboratory test. So, it seems that we can recommend standard germination test with high trust to predict the seedling emergence and establishment of dryland barley in the farm.