Business Activity|| Performing germination test experiment on my newly purchased maize seed.

Hello my fellow entrepreneurs, it a new farming season and in this post I will be performing a germination test experiment on maize seed where I will be using two different technique to know the germination rate of my newly brought maize seed. It is an interesting experiment and I am sure we will all learn something form it so without any further delay let get started.

Image designed on canva

Introduction

Farming is as old as mankind, it is the way we multiple our food which is one of the key to our survival. Farming is a step by step process and in order to achieve the best result, all this processes has to done the right way. The first process of farming is planting which is a process of sowing seed in the ground. Before planting, there are few requirement which has to be done such as land clearing, ploughing, harrowing and others. For more details click here where I have explained all this requirement in details.

Planting a good seed is very important because no matter how good you take care of your plant, if the seed are bad the probability of high yield is low. Some farmer make the mistake of buying grain form the market to plant, this is wrong because different varieties of grain are usually mixed together in the market so this usually result to planting different type of seed side by side on the farm.

The best way to acquire a good seed is to purchase one form a certified seed company. It is the beginning of farming season and I just purchase a new breed of maize seed so I decide to perform a germination test to see how well it will germinate. So let begin the experiment.

Procedure and Observation.

There are two different technique which can be used to determine how well seed will germinate. The simple technique is called floatation technique and this uses seed buoyancy to determine how well the seed will germinate. This technique is fast and usually not accurate the reason why you can use the floatation technique is when you do not have time to carry out the other germination technique.

The second technique is the experiment I will be explaining today and that is the germination technique is involve the seed germinating and calculating how well it grow. The germination technique is also easy but it require more time to complete and I will be explaining in details how to carry out this experiment successfully.

NOTE: All experiment are better done in the laboratory but due to absent of a laboratory, all material used are common item in every household.

-Step 1: In absent of a petri dish, I used a similar material which is a transparent plastic rubber. With this material I can easily monitor the maize germinating. I selected 10 seed at random and filled the plastic rubber with water.

They is no certain quantity of water to be added, the water level should just be above the maize. By doing so I have simply carried out the floatation technique and no seed was found floating which was a good sign.

-Step 2: I placed the seed in a cool environment away from sunlight to minimize evaporation. I constantly check on the seed and in 4 days later, 3 out of the 10 seed began to germinate.

-Step 3: On the fifth day, I noticed the water level has dropped so I refilled the plastic rubber with water just above the seed.

Eight days later my experiment was completed and I noticed 4 out of the 10 seed did not germinated.

Here are all the images of germinated seed and does that did not germinate.

I transfer the germinated seed to my house garden where I believe all necessary nutrient required for maize to germinate properly are found in the soil and this will increase the rate of germination.

Calculation

To calculate the germination rate is simple and straight forward as shown below.

Precaution

This is an easy experiment as explained above but they are certain precaution which can affect the germination of your seed and I was careful with the following:

• I ensured the plastic rubber was clean and free from duct.

• I filled the plastic rubber with water just above the seed because too much water or too little water will affect the seed germination.

• I placed my experiment in a cool environment which reduce the rate of water lose to the atmosphere and that was the ideal temperature for maize seed to grow.

• I ensured the plastic rubber was opened at all time so that the seed can get enough oxygen.

Conclusion

As seen from the result I got from the calculation that the germination rate was not impressive and I am a little disappointed but I am still hopeful the seed will perform better on the farm field. It is important to carry out germination test on newly purchased seed so as to know the germinating rate which will increase productivity and profit. I will advise not to repeat the same variety of seed for more than 4 years because research has shown that the yield of any seed reduce every year irrespective of treatment or condition during farming.

I have successfully completed my experiment on germination test on maize seed and I hope we all learn a thing or two form this post. I am open to any question feel free to ask in the comment section.

Business name:	Ai'nu Farm
Owner's name:	@weasell
Business address:	Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria.
About us:	Click Link.

NOTE: 10% Author Reward goes to the community account.

Thank you for reading.