MAIZE SEEDING RATE: REPLACING GERMINATION WITH FIELD EMERGENCE AND ACCELERATED AGING

The objective of this study was to evaluate the suitability ofreplacing the germination test in the calculation of seed quantity with theresults of the field emergence and accelerated aging tests. The experiment wasconducted using a randomized block design in a 2x5 factorial scheme: twolevels of seed vigor and five levels of seeding safety margin (0, 5, 10, 15 and20%) using untreated seeds of the hybrid Defender Viptera 3. The evaluatedparameters were percentage of germination, field emergence and acceleratedaging. The analyzed variable, plant stand, was submitted to analysis of varianceat the 5% significance level and, when significant, the results were submittedto the Mean Percentage Error statistical procedure to determine the degree ofproximity between forecast and observed values of stand density. The resultsshowed that, requiring a smaller safety margin, the results of field emergenceand accelerated aging tests applied in the seeding rate calculation were moreaccurate than germination for stand density estimation. For so, nevertheless,they required larger amounts of seeds in sowing operation to reach the samestand density obtained with the use of germination test.