Relationships of Temperature, Time and Moisture Content to the Viability of Seeds of Kentucky Bluegrass

Authors

Louis N. Bass, Iowa Agricultural Experiment StationFollow

Document Type

Research

Abstract

Kentucky bluegrass seed is usually harvested at quite high moisture levels. The freshly harvested material is packed in burlap bags where it may remain a few minutes, a few hours, or a day or two. While in the bags, the green material may also be piled up or loaded on trucks for long hauls. The seedsmen who handle bluegrass seed have known for a long time that green seed will heat while in the bags, especially when the bags sit for a long time, but they did not know how long the green seed could be left in the bags without heating, what conditions promoted heating, or how long the green seed could be subjected to various temperatures without injury. In 1916 Garman and Vaughan (1) studied the curing of Kentucky bluegrass seed and its effects on viability of the seed. They found that a prolonged exposure to 122° F. (50° C.) killed the seed. The scope of this paper is confined to laboratory experiments to determine the relationships between the moisture content of the seed at harvest and the length of time required by a given temperature to bring about loss of viability.

Publication Date

1953

Journal Title

Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science

Volume

60

Issue

1

First Page

86

Last Page

88

Copyright

©1953 Iowa Academy of Science, Inc.

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

Recommended Citation

Bass, Louis N. (1953) "Relationships of Temperature, Time and Moisture Content to the Viability of Seeds of Kentucky Bluegrass," Proceedings of the Iowa Academy of Science, 60(1), 86-88.
Available at: https://scholarworks.uni.edu/pias/vol60/iss1/9