What to Do When Rice Seeds Have a Low Germination Rate? Methods to Improve the Germination Rate
Rice is a very important staple grain in China, and in many places it is hard to go without rice at almost every meal. This shows rice's status in China, and rice is also the grain crop with the widest planting area in the country. However, when growing rice, people often run into problems, and a low germination rate of rice seeds is one of them. So how can we improve the germination rate of rice seeds when growing rice? Let's take a look below!
1. Sun-drying the seeds
Before sowing, place the seeds under the sun to bake for about two days. This can effectively reduce the thickness of the seed coat, promote enzyme activity, and noticeably improve the seed germination rate. Many friends find that after buying seeds, poor management causes the seeds' germination ability to decline, so sun-drying the seeds is a very important task. Proper sun-drying can also effectively reduce the substances in the seeds that inhibit germination. It can also dry out the moisture inside the seeds, which helps promote even moisture distribution during later sun-drying and can also achieve a disinfecting and sterilizing effect.
2. Soaking the seeds and disinfecting them
Soaking the seeds is meant to promote water absorption by the seeds, ensure that every seed has enough water needed for germination, and improve the uniformity of germination. First, put the seeds in warm water and soak them for about a week. Then use chemicals to dress the seeds for disinfection. Although sun-drying can have a sterilizing effect, the sterilization is not comprehensive. Therefore, in order to thoroughly eliminate the pathogens inside the seeds, we should dress the seeds with chemicals such as prochloraz. This can effectively prevent diseases such as bakanae disease, and we should also choose the corresponding seed-dressing chemical according to the specific disease we want to control.
3. Keeping moisture and accelerating germination
After completing the soaking and disinfection work, we also need to carry out germination acceleration. When accelerating germination, a certain level of humidity must be maintained; humidity is also the issue that many friends most easily overlook when accelerating germination, resulting in poor results. After soaking the seeds, air-dry them, then wrap them in a wet cloth to accelerate germination. If the temperature is relatively low, then we also need to do a good job of keeping them warm. When soaking the seeds, the temperature should be controlled and should not be too high, otherwise it can easily cause the seeds to burn their sprouts and lose their germination ability.
4. Spreading out and sun-drying the sprouts
After germination acceleration succeeds, in order for the seeds to adapt well to the natural environment such as planting temperature, we need to sun-dry the seeds again. This time, sun-drying is mainly to strengthen the adaptability of the sprouts. Usually after germination acceleration, spread the seeds out indoors to air-dry for about 12 hours, and then sow them. If some rice seeds cannot be sown in time after germination acceleration due to environmental factors such as low temperature, they should also be sun-dried in time, controlling the growth of roots and sprouts by lowering temperature and humidity, and then sown when the environment is suitable.
The above is a brief introduction to how to improve the germination rate of rice seeds. The germination acceleration of rice seeds is very important, as it not only affects the growth ability of rice but is also directly related to yield. That is all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only. Thank you everyone for reading and supporting.