Browsing by Subject "Itävyys"

The high quality of seed is a basic requirement for producing high yields of good quality. The production conditions may vary and their effect to seed quality have not been fully understood. The aim of this study was to define how stress during growing season affects germinability of barley seeds and the yield potential of the next generation. The plants were exposed to different stress conditions in a greenhouse and in a pot test hall. The stress conditions included plant disease infection in different growing stages, low and high temperature in different growing stages, drought, water logging and early harvest. The germinability of the seeds was studied one, three, six and nine months after the harvest. The obtained results were inconsistend as for many stress treatments the germinability results of the samples varied between different measuring time points and were variously lower or higher compared to results of the control sample. The only stress condition that clearly lowered the germinability was early harvest. The second part of the work was to study the effect of stress conditions on the crop yield of the next generation. The seeds produced under stress conditions were grown in optimal conditions and thus it was studied whether the stress of the previous generation affects the crop formation of the next generation. No clear dependence was observed between the stress treatments of the previous generation and the yield performance of the next generation. As further research, it would be beneficial to study the effect of the stress conditions on vigour of the next generation seeds.