Effect of the Storage Period and Fungicide Treatment on the Physiological and Sanitary Quality of Soybean Seeds

This study evaluated the effect of storage period on the physiological and health quality of soybean seeds. The experiment was arranged in a factorial scheme (4 x 2 x 2) with four periods of storage (0, 2, 4 and 6 months), two soybean cultivars (‘BRS Pintado’ and ‘MSOY 8866’) and treated and untreated seeds with the formulated mixture of active ingredients pyraclostrobine (25 g i.a L-1) + Methyl-Thiophanate (225 g i.a L-1) + fipronil (250 g i.a L-1) in a 0,1 L.ha-1 dosage of the commercial product. Concerning health, there was a reduction of Aspergillus spp., Cercospora kikuchii, Colletotrichum dematium var. truncata and Fusarium spp fungus when periods of storage were increased independently if storage interactions occurred due to cultivar, treatment and/or all analyzed factors. cv. ‘BRS Pintado’ stood out by presenting lower results on the occurrence of fungi. The isolated cultivar factor presented a significant result concerning the physiological quality and c.v. ‘BRS Pintado’ showed better results in the variables: germination of seeds from the speed aging test, germination, shoot lenght from the speed emergence test, and both shoot dry matter and root dry matter of germination. There was an interaction for the speed emergence index variable between storage versus cultivar, in which cv. ‘BRS Pintado’ achieved better average results in all periods of storage. The storage factor alone was significant for shoot length of plants from the speed emergence index, the shoot plant dry matter from the emergency speed index, root dry matter of seedling germination and germination of seeds subjected to accelerated aging. The isolated treatment factor was significant in the germination variable and the untreated seeds showed better results in relation to the treated ones. However, the difference of these values would not be significant at the field. Treated seeds showed better results compared to untreated ones in most of the analyzed variables and their association with seeds storage did not affect the physiological quality evaluation during six months of evaluation, enabling the maintenance of the health quality of seeds.