Presently, chemical seed treatments are in discussion due to their directly or indirectly impacts on human health or other living organisms. They may also negatively affect the ecosystem and the food chain. In rice seeds, chemicals may cause phytotoxic effects including seed degradation. Eugenol is the main component of clove (Eugenia caryophillis) oil, which was proved to act simultaneously as bactericide, virocide and especially fungicide. The in vitro study was aimed to compare the inhibitory effect of the following seed treatment substances against seed borne fungi and their shelf-life during 12 months of storage; conventional captan (CA), chitosan-lignosulphonate polymer (CL), eugenol incorporated into chitosan-lignosulphonate polymer (E+CL) and control (CO). The obtained results of fungi inhibition were classified in three groups, which showed at first that CA treatment led to a better, i.e., longer, inhibitory effect on Alternaria padwickii, Rhizoctonia solani, Curvularia sp., Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus niger than E+CL. Secondly, E+CL coating polymer showed the longest inhibitory effect against Bipolaris oryzae and Nigrospora oryzae compared to CA and CL coating polymer. Finally, both CA and E+CL coating polymer had non-significant difference inhibitory effect on Fusarium moniliforme. The variant of CL coating polymer for seed coating was only during the first 6 months of storage able to inhibit all species of the observed seed borne fungi, whereas CA and E+CL coating polymer were capable to inhibit most of the fungi until 9 months of storage.

The evaluation of seed deterioration is very important to control the quality of the seeds stored. This study aimed to investigate the potential of fast ethanol assay for seed quality assessment of maize stored under different conditions. The first experiment was to determine the incubating temperature, incubating time, and amount of seed used in the assay. The results showed that the best protocol for the detection of headspace ethanol was incubation of 3 g of maize seed with 20% moisture content (wet basis) in a 20 mL gas chromatography vial at 70 °C for 1.5 h. The assay induced approximately 200-700 µg.L-1 of headspace ethanol, which was sufficient to identify seeds with different vigour levels. In the second experiment, the optimal conditions were used for quality assessment in aged maize seed stored for 12 months under different storage conditions. The increase in the ethanol production of stored maize seed under the controlled conditions (15 °C and 20% RH in the hermetic seal) was lower than under ambient conditions. The ethanol production levels of maize seed samples at the start of storage was significantly lesser than at six months storage (p < 0.05). The test limitations in deteriorated seed with different cultivars and ages will be discussed.

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