Evaluation of the cowpea seeds vigour through of the coldtest and accelerated aging test

Abstract

Aiming to evaluate the efficiency of different methods of accelerated aging and cold test to determine the physiological quality of seed of five cultivars of cowpea:  BRS Guariba, BR 17 Gurguéia, BRS Marataoã, Quarentão e Vinagre. The experiment was conducted at the laboratory of University State of Maranhão - UEMA. In the accelera-ted aging test were used the following temperature and time of exposure: 41^oC, 42°C , 43°C and 45°C for 48 hours and 42 ° C for 72 hours. In cold test were used 10^oC, 13°C and 15^oC for 3, 4 and 5 days of exposure. Tests showed that the accelerated aging test of the combination of 43ºC/48 hours and for cold test the combination 15ºC/ 5 days were the most appropriate for the evaluation of the potential of physiological cultivars of cowpea seed. The accelerated aging  tests 42°C/48 hours and of cold test 15ºC/3 days were those that had greater consistency in the separation of lots of cultivars of seed cowpea because of correlation between the results of both tests had higher levels of correlation with the correlation coefficient (r) of 0.99%. Both tests studied have sensitivity for identifying differences in the vigor of the seed of the cowpea cultivars studied and the cold test is an alternative as consistent as the accelerated aging  test for evaluating the vigor of cowpea seed