Fig. 2.

CSN enhanced seed germination and seedling emergence of naturally aged sunflower seeds. (A) Typical images of naturally aged sunflower seeds (after 18 months of storage) in imbibition process (48 h), in the presence or absence of CSN. Scale bar, 10 mm. (B) Time courses of germination rates of sunflower seeds stored for 18 months treated with CSN or not. (C) The seedling emergence phenotype from naturally aged seeds (after 18 months of storage) at 5 days post-sowing in the presence or absence of CSN treatment. Scale bar, 300 mm. (D) Seedling emergence rate for (C) was presented. (E) Typical images for sunflower seedling height. Scale bar, 200 mm. (F) Quantitative analysis on the plant height shown in (E). Four biological replicates each with 50 seeds for each treatment were set in seed germination and seedling emergence tests. The asterisk (*) or the diverse lowercase(s) on top of the bars were indicative of significant differences (p < 0.01, Lsd) across treatments. Exogenous CSN at 25 mg·L⁻¹ was employed.