The flux rate of Ca2+ into embryo can be used to evaluate the vigour level of maize seeds

Seed vigour is an important trait and is often used to evaluate seed quality. A rapid and accurate evaluation of seed vigour is very important for agricultural production. Ca is an important secondary messenger in plants, responding to various biotic and abiotic stimuli by Ca flux into cytoplasm. To the best of our knowledge, however, no report has been published about seed vigour and Ca influx. In this study, we used two hybrid maize (Zea mays L.) lines and their corresponding female parent lines as materials, and performed ageing and ‘ageing + priming’ treatments to obtain seeds with different vigour levels. After seeds were imbibed for 24 h, the intact seeds or embryos were used as materials for determining the Ca influx rate using non-invasive micro-test technique (NMT). Results showed that, with the intact embryos as materials, the Ca influx rate showed higher stability and higher values. Correlation analysis indicated that there was a significant, positive linear correlation between the shoot dry weight vigour index and Ca flux rate into embryo. The results demonstrated that the Ca influx rate can be used to evaluate the vigour levels of maize seeds.