Enhanced Sweet Corn Propagation: Studies on Transplanting Feasibility and Seed Priming

Sweet corn hybrids with high-sugar genotypes (sh₂) has inherent problem of low seed emergence and stand in the field. This study was conducted to determine the effect of seed size, tray cell size and growing media components on sweet corn transplant transplanting. Other objectives were to evaluate the effect of priming sweet corn seeds on germination in the field. Bio-priming with Trichoderma and Bacillus, osmopriming with KNO₃, and hydro-priming with H₂O have been tested. The results indicated that transplanting sweet corn is feasible with high quality transplants from seeds that germinate well in disease-free environment. Large sweet corn seeds, large tray cells, and vermiculite-based growing media proved to gave higher germination percentages. While same factors did not show pronounced effect on seedling performance in terms of root and shoot length and fresh weight. In the priming experiment, the bio-priming treatment showed the highest germination of seeds percentage among other priming treatments and the control. Sweet corn seeds treated with Bacillus megaterium germinated 50% higher than seeds treated with Trichoderma spp. as bio-control agents. Aspergillus niger, and Penicillium represented 65% of pathogens responsible for failure of sweet corn seed germination. The results of this study demonstrated the feasibility of enhanced sweet corn seed propagation through transplanting and seed priming to improve emergence and field stand.