Osmotic Conditioning of Amaranth Seeds to Increase Germination

Amaranth can help solve food, malnutrition, and health problems in the population because it provides energy, proteins, vitamins, and minerals, and is also a natural source of lysine, an amino acid rare in other cereals. However, when the seed is stored, it deteriorates relatively rapidly, which is primarily reflected in low germination. Osmotic conditioning, or "priming," is a treatment that can improve the germination capacity of seeds once they have deteriorated. To generate the present procol, an osmotic conditioning experiment was conducted with the aim of increasing the germination percentage in amaranth seeds from accessions conserved at the National Center for Genetic Resources (CNRG) of INIFAP. A study conducted by the working team of the Seed Collection of the CNRG showed that of a total of 40 amaranth seed accessions received for conservation and safekeeping in said collection, only 16 samples had a germination percentage greater than or equal to 85%. Therefore, a research work was carried out on osmotic conditioning with seeds of accessions that had low germination, which led to the obtaining of this protocol.