EFFECT OF SEED SIZE ON GERMINATION AND GROWTH OF SEEDLINGS IN WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.)

The investigation was conducted at laboratory of cereal technology, Agronomy Department, Faculty of Agricultural, Omer AL-Mukhtar University, EL-Badia, Libya during 2015 /2016 autumn season to study the effect of three wheat cultivars (Kufra, Masry1 and Kazeino) and three size of grains i.e. 1000-grain weight ranged from 40.3 to 43.6 g. for large size, 32.14-37.22 medium and 22.14 to 25.33 g. for small size and their interactions on seedling growth characters of wheat. A factorial experimental design in three replications was applied and LSD test were used to mean comperes. The
obtained results can be summarized as follows: Data showed that there were no significant differences among the
wheat cultivars and their effect on germination percentage (%). But there were significant differences among the wheat cultivars on properties of seedlings. Masry1 wheat cultivar surpassed Kufra and Kazeino wheat cultivars in most of
seedling growth characters (which gave the lowest number of days from sowing to completely rise of the first, second and third leaves, root and shoot length, seedling fresh and dry weight and leaf area per seedling. The lowest values were recorded by Kufra wheat cultivar. Results obtained indicated that there was significant effect for seed size
on all the studied traits except of germination percent (%), where large seeds size reported the shortest significant values for day to emergence (first leaf through scabbard, one leaf, two leaves and three leaves emergence), tallest
stem and rootlet, heavy fresh and dry weight seedlings, highest leaf area compared with small seed size.
There was no significant effect for the interactions between seed size and the genotypes on germination percent (%)and germination strong, fresh and dry weight of seedlings stem and rootlet length, while There was significant effect for the interactions on the first and second leaf emergence and leaf area index. Masry1 wheat cultivar with large seeds size surpassed Kufra and Kazeino in the time of leaves emergence and leaf area index.