Aging Effect of Wheat and Barley Seeds Upon Germination Mitotic Index and Chromosomal Damage

The experiment was carried out to ascertain the effects of age on wheat and barley seeds. Germination percentage of different years old wheat and barley seeds were found to decrease gradually with an increase of the storage time. The germination percentages of wheat seeds were much lower than that of barley seeds. Mitotic index and chromosomal irregularities from root tip cells were also studied. Most of the irregularities were characterized by precocious separation of chromosomes and inactivation of spindle mechanism, chromosome fragment, laggard, bridge, condensed and sticky chromosome, ring chromosomes etc. In both the materials, the frequencies of dividing cells were found to decrease with the increase of the age of seeds. Frequency of abnormal cells were also found to increase with the increase of the age of seeds. The frequency of chromosomal aberrations with increased storage time was closely related to the loss of germinability.