Physical and Physiological Quality of Safflower Seed Stored in Different Packages and Temperatures

Seed storage is one of the oldest techniques that, besides protecting against attacks of microorganisms and insects, has as main goal to preserve the product, with minimum losses, ensuring vigor and viability of the seeds. Safflower (Carthamus tinctorium L.) is a crop with great agricultural potential due to the high content of oil in its seed and can be a viable alternative in the production of biofuel. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effects of packaging and storage temperatures on the physical and physiological quality of safflower seeds. The experiment was conducted in the soil and plant production and bromatology laboratories of the Institute of Agrarian and Technological Sciences, Federal University of Mato Grosso Campus of Rondonópolis, in the period of July to September 2014. The experiment was a completely randomized design in a 5 × 2 factorial scheme, corresponding to five temperatures (10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 °C) and two packages (cotton and paper) with five replicates. The physical quality parameters (water content in the seed, mass of one thousand seeds, hectolitre weight) and physiological parameters (percent germination, Seed viability (Tetrazolium), accelerated aging and electric conductivity) of the seeds were evaluated. The physical quality of the safflower seed was not influenced by, the types of packaging and storage temperature. The physiological parameters of safflower seeds were significantly altered by the the type of containers and storage temperatures conditions. The paper packaging, at temperatures of 20 and 25 °C, provided greater conservation of the seed.