Esfericidade de amostras de sementes de híbridos de milho

Abstract

The standardization of corn seeds is important to provide uniform distribution, both in pneumatic and mechanical feeders. The sphericity of the corn seed is altered as a funcion of its position on the cob and the pressure exerted between caryopsis during the grain filling period. Interfering with the pressure demand in pneumatic feeders, at the same time that, in mechanical feeders, the dificulty of obtaining homogeneus bathces in terms of format makes it difficult to select the honeycomb disc. The present research aimed to evaluate the sphericity index of hybrid corn seeds used by farmers in the counties of São Paulo das Missões and Cerro Largo. The evaluation took place in the 2021/2022 crop year and 200 seeds of 14 hybrids with different grain classes where characterized in terms of their average dimensions, average sphericity index and sample standart deviation. According to the results, seeds presented a sphericity index that varies from 65.0 to 99.3%. Among the hybrids evaluated, sphericity standard deviation values from 1.96 to 12.36 were found.