FORCING THE GERMINATION OF FRESHLY HAR¬ 
VESTED WHEAT AND OTHER CEREALS 1 
By George T. Harrington 
Formerly Scientific Assistant, Seed-Testing Laboratories , United States Department of 
Agriculture 
In the regions where the winter wheat harvest precedes sowing by 
only a few weeks, as in Wisconsin, farmers depend largely upon the cur¬ 
rent crop for fall sowing. The inability to secure a prompt and satis¬ 
factory germination test of the freshly harvested grain, when tested at 
the ordinary temperature, 20° C. or a little higher, has heretofore created 
an administrative difficulty, which became acute toward the end of the 
sowing season when a prompt report by the analyst was imperative. 
The work reported in this paper was done in an attempt to overcome this 
difficulty. 2 In all, about four dozen samples of wheat and one dozen 
each of barley and oats of the current crop, part of them gathered from 
the standing grain, were included in the investigation. More than half 
of these samples were gathered by hand in the State of Wisconsin. 
Others were sent there or to Washington from Colorado and from the 
Dominion of Canada. 
Germination tests were made in ioo-mm. Petri dishes with moist 
absorbent cotton as a seed bed, using only unbroken grains which showed 
no visible evidence of decay or injury. The majority of the samples were 
presoaked about half an hour in Gooch crucibles in running tap water, 
those badly infected with microorganisms being first sterilized from two 
to five minutes in a i per cent solution of silver nitrate. Only 50 grains 
were used in the majority of the tests, but 100 or 200 in some tests. 
Preliminary germination tests of all samples and a few special tests in 
which temperature effects were not important were made at room 
temperature (about 20° to 26° C.). Samples which germinated very 
well in the preliminary tests were not included in any of the tests with 
different methods of forcing germination. 
On account of the limitations under which the work was done, it was 
necessary to count grains as germinating while in the very early stages 
of germination and to discontinue the majority of the tests at the earliest 
possible date. This practice was justified by observation upon further 
development at a favorable temperature for growth in a large number 
of selected cases. 
Moisture determinations were made concurrently with the germination 
tests by drying small samples of the grain for two or three days in an 
oven in which the temperature was maintained at about 105° C. and the 
air was kept in circulation by a small electrically driven fan. 
1 Accepted for publication July 2, 1921. 
* The greater part of the work was done in Madison, Wis., during August, 1919, with the cooperation of 
Prof. A. L. Stone, State seed inspector of Wisconsin, on whose suggestion the investigation was undertaken, 
Dr. W. W. Robbins, who at that time was with the Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station, and the 
Canadian analysts. Prof. Stone assisted in the arrangements for collecting samples in Wisconsin. Dr. 
Robbins and the Canadian analysts sent samples from their locailities for test. The necessary equipment 
was furnished by the Branch Cereal Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture at Madi¬ 
son and the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin. After my return to Wash¬ 
ington, Miss Bertha C. Hite, of the Seed-Testing Laboratories, continued the work, concerning herself 
especially with the effect of increased oxygen pressure and the germination of old cereals at different tem¬ 
peratures. 
Vol. XXIII, No. 
Jan. 13, 1933 
Key No. G-263 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
abb 
(79) 
