| Medicago sativa L. cv. Longdong was used as test material to explore the effect of ultra-drying storage on seedling growth. The seeds were ultra-dried from an initial moisture content of 9.03% (CK) to 7.09%～4.59%, respectively, with silica gel method, and then hermetically sealed in
aluminized paper at ambient temperature for storage. One year later, all the seeds with different moisture contents were sown in pot with sand to study the growth and physiology of the resulting seedlings. The result indicated that moderately ultra-dried seeds performed better in seedling emergence, shoot height and MDA content, on day 30, seedling number of treatments with moisture contents from 6.36 to 4.59 were 25％～50% times higher than the control, and on day 60, shoo
t height of treatments with moisture contents from 6.36 to 5.46 were 11.02％～15.68% times higher than control. MDA content of all the ultra-drying treatments were only 44.92%～70.29% of the CK treatment. Root volume, aboveground dry weight, underground dry weight and soluble sugar content were only 55.36%～89.29%, 63.06%～88.05%, 50.71%～76.69% and 63.35%～97.86% of the CK, respectively, ex
cept the non-significant difference of 4.59% treatment in leaf number and 5.18% treatments in nodule number compared with CK All the other treatments were found significantly lower than CK in leaf and nodule numbers, and the nodule number of the ultra-dry treatments was only 63.00%～92.56% of CK, indicating that ultra-drying storage could increase seedling emergence, shoot height and plant resi
stance, but decrease plant biomass and root volume. |