Germination and vigour of wrinkled and greenish soybean seed

Drought stress and high temperatures during soybean/Glycine max (L.) Merr./ seed fill can result in the appearance of wrinkled and greenish seeds. Drou ght susceptible genotypes can produce a high percentage of wrinkled and gre enish seeds. Eight drought susceptible genotypes and three as control were planted in a two-year field trial. Susceptible genotypes were exposed to dr ought stress, the control variant was irrigated. Harvested seed was classif ied into three categories: 1. Seed of normal appearance, 2. Wrinkled seed a nd 3. Greenish seed. Occurence of wrinkled and greenish seeds was higher in the first, more stressful year. Wrinkled seed had significantly higher ger mination (46.1%) than greenish (24.7%). Seed vigour (cold rest and tetrazol ium test) showed lower values than germination test results. Wrinkled seed in standard germination and cold test conditions had enough rime and moistu re to complete the imbibition process, recover shape and retain some germin ation Greenish seed showed very low values in both vigour tests (5.0% and 5 .9% vigorous seedlings). Germination, cold test and tetrazolium rest values for seed categories (harvested, normal, wrinkled and greenish seeds) were highly and significantly correlated. Correlations were lower when genotypes were the object of observation.