Field Seeds

This book introduces readers to both seed treatment and seedling pretreatments, taking into account various factors such as plant age, growing conditions and climate. Reflecting recent advances in seed priming and pretreatment techniques, it demonstrates how these approaches can be used to improve stress tolerance and enhance crop productivity. Covering the basic phenomena involved, mechanisms and recent innovations, the book offers a comprehensive guide for students, researchers and scientists alike, particularly Plant Physiologists, Agronomists, Environmental Scientists, Biotechnologists, and Botanists, who will find essential information on physiology and stress tolerance. The book also provides a valuable source of information for professionals at seed companies, seed technologists, food scientists, policymakers, and agricultural development officers around the world.

The conservation of genetic resources is vital to the maintenance of biodiversity and to the world's ability to feed its growing population. There are now more than a thousand genebanks worldwide involved in the ex situ (meaning 'away from the source') storage of particular classes of crops. Since the 1970s, the eleven genebanks maintained by the centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) have become pivotal to the global conservation effort. However, key policy and management issues ' usually with economic dimensions ' have largely been overlooked.This provided the impetus for a series of detailed economic studies, led by IFPRI, in collaboration with five CGIAR centres: CIAT (based in Colombia), CIMMYT (Mexico), ICARDA (Syria), ICRISAT (India) and IRRI (Philippines). This book reports these studies and discusses their wider implications.

The new edition of Seeds contains new information on many topics discussed in the first edition, such as fruit/seed heteromorphism, breaking of physical dormancy and effects of inbreeding depression on germination. New topics have been added to each chapter, including dichotomous keys to types of seeds and kinds of dormancy; a hierarchical dormancy classification system; role of seed banks in restoration of plant communities; and seed germination in relation to parental effects, pollen competition, local adaption, climate change and karrikinolide in smoke from burning plants. The database for the world biogeography of seed dormancy has been expanded from 3,580 to about 13,600 species. New insights are presented on seed dormancy and germination ecology of species with specialized life cycles or habitat requirements such as orchids, parasitic, aquatics and halophytes. Information from various fields of science has been combined with seed dormancy data to increase our understanding of the evolutionary/phylogenetic origins and relationships of the various kinds of seed dormancy (and nondormancy) and the conditions under which each may have evolved. This comprehensive synthesis of information on the ecology, biogeography and evolution of seeds provides a thorough overview of whole-seed biology that will facilitate and help focus research efforts. Most wide-ranging and thorough account of whole-seed dormancy available Contains information on dormancy and germination of more than 14,000 species from all the continents – even the two angiosperm species native to the Antarctica continent Includes a taxonomic index so researchers can quickly find information on their study organism(s) and Provides a dichotomous key for the kinds of seed dormancy Topics range from fossil evidence of seed dormancy to molecular biology of seed dormancy Much attention is given to the evolution of kinds of seed dormancy Includes chapters on the basics of how to do seed dormancy studies; on special groups of plants, for example orchids, parasites, aquatics, halophytes; and one chapter devoted to soil seed banks Contains a revised, up-dated classification scheme of seed dormancy, including a formula for each kind of dormancy Detailed attention is given to physiological dormancy, the most common kind of dormancy on earth

Seeds of Amazonian Plants is the first field guide to treat the extraordinary diversity of seeds and diaspores of plants commonly encountered in the Amazon and other lowland moist forests of the American tropics. This stunningly illustrated guide features an easy-to-use whole-plant approach to seed identification that provides detailed descriptions not only of the seeds but also of the habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit of Amazonian plants, as well as information about the known uses and distribution of each genus. Presenting these descriptions together with 750 full-color photos and a unique identification key, this premier field guide enables users to identify seeds of 544 genera and 131 families of plants. The most comprehensive field guide to Amazonian seeds Features 750 full-color photos that make identification easy Covers 544 genera and 131 families of Amazonian plants Describes seeds, habit, trunk, bark, leaves, infructescence, and fruit Includes unique seed identification key Compact, portable, and beautifully illustrated--the ideal field guide

Since the publication of our monograph on seed physiology and biochemistry (The Physiology and Biochemistry of Seeds in Relation to Germination, Sprin ger-Verlag, 1978, 1982), it has been suggested to us that a text covering the same subject area would be appropriate. This book is our response. Unlike the previous volumes, however, this text is not intended to be either a critical or a comprehensive account. Instead it is a more generalized consideration of the essential aspects of seed physiology and biochemistry as we see them. It also includes a substantial amount of new and different material. In a work of this sort it is inevitable that some simplifications must be made, but we hope, never theless, that we have presented the most reasonable conspectus of areas of con troversy and uncertainty. In this respect, literature citations have been kept to a minimum and do not interrupt the text; they are placed at the end of each chapter and are intended to be used as a source for further references. We hope that this book will be of value to students and teachers in uni versities, colleges, and other institutes of higher learning whose courses include plant biology. Although it is particularly appropriate for studies of seed biol ogy, it should also find broader applications in general plant physiology, agri culture, and horticulture.