Fungicide seed treatment on the physiological and sanitary quality in maize cultivation

At post-harvestperiod, quality of corn sedes may be influenced by several important factors such as: presence of harmful microorganisms, chemical treatments, host speciesgeno type and storage conditions. Seed treatment with fungicides is a recommended practice to protect the seeds from pathogens, therefore, seed treatment is advisable in most cases. Seeds were treated with different fungicides in order to evaluate the treatment effect on the physiological and sanitary quality of the crop. The incidence, severity and index of damage were determined, as well as plant height, dry weight and root length. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with three replications, in a factorial scheme 4x2 + 1; factor A: fungicides (carbendazim + thiram; carboxyn + thiram; methyl thiophanate + thiram and tebuconazole); factor B: dose (minimum and maximum); and 1: control. The data were subjected to analysis of variance and for the comparison of means, Tukey’s test was used at 5% error probability. The results showed that there were no significant differences for the variables that determined the sanitary quality of seeds when treated with the fungicides compared with the control, due to the low presence of pathogens in the same and in the soil, as well as there were no significant differences in the variables that determine the physiological quality. It is concluded that due to the low presence of pathogens, it was not possible to determine the effectiveness of the fungicides and, once treated, the maize seeds were not affected by the same with regard to the physiological quality.