Figure 3.

Sequentially happened activities during rice seed germination. Upon imbibition, rice seed germination process could be divided into three phases (Yang et al., 2007). Phase I is the first rapid water-uptake period with the onset of mRNA biosynthesis (Howell et al., 2009), phase II is the most important stage for metabolism reactivation, mobilization of reserves, cell structure repair, cell wall loosening, and coleoptile elongation, phase III is another rapid water-uptake stage with TCA and aerobic respiration recovering, cell division initiation, radical protrusion, and initiation of seedling establishment. The picture displayed the rice seed after 0, 24, 48, and 72 h imbibition (provided by Mr. Chao Han).