ASABE Technical Library - Abstract

Abstract. Brazil is a major producer and exporter of soybeans worldwide. Although, the country suffers from severe disabilities in the storage industry, that is still insufficient to meet all the demand of production, which leads to great losses of the product. The use of packaging to ensure greater maintenance of the seed vigor is fundamental in high productivity of soybean, so the study of new technologies in packaging could be an alternative capable of reducing the cost of agricultural inputs, which would have a strong economic impact in Brazilian agribusiness. In this study, we aimed to assess the damage in soybean seeds packed in different containers over a period of six months of storage. For this, two cultivars soybean have been studied, the BRS 7580, conventional, and the cultivar VTOP 1059, genetically modified. The packaging used for the storage of seeds were kraft paper, polystyrene, and metallic foil. The tests used for evaluation of seed vigor were: Standard germination, seedling length and electrical conductivity. The experiment was conducted in a factorial 2x3x4, being two cultivars; three packaging and four storage periods (0, 2, 4 e 6 months) . The seeds stored in paper containers obtained greater longevity and better physiological vigor. The metalized packaging, however, had the lowest performance among the studied packaging. The polystyrene packing had average performance. Getting results close to the packing paper. It is believed that the permeability of the kraft paper packaging, has been responsible for its better performance. The higher porosity of these containers allowed a gas exchange of the internal environment by reducing the respiratory activity of the seeds, which allowed them to keep its quality for a longer time. The cultivar, VTOP 1059, had better performance during the storage period, however, close to the performance of the conventional cultivar.