Understanding seed germination responses to low-dose X-rays: the role of seed quality, variety, and density.

Abstract

Background Seed quality analysis using X-rays is increasingly explored due to its non-invasive and rapid nature. Yet, the current absence of reliable and standardised imaging protocols has led to contradictory effects of X-ray exposure in previous studies. Our work systematically investigated the effect of low-energy X-rays (peak energy ≲25 keV) with limited doses ( Results The baseline of three germination categories was established across seven species before the application of low-dose X-ray exposure under controlled standard germination conditions. The high inter-varietal and inter-lot variabilities, in addition to the strong interaction between X-ray exposure with both variety and lot, reinforced the need to consider genetic and seed quality aspects while evaluating the impacts of low-dose, low-energy X-rays ( 2 = 0.82) and their germination outcomes after exposure (p 2 = 0.88). Among all species, fennel with notably low density (0.7 g/cm 3 ) demonstrated the most pronounced gains in germination after exposure (4.6 ± 6.3%) due to the stimulative effect. Conclusion Low-dose X-ray exposure is non-destructive with a beneficial effect on germination, but can be strongly influenced by underlying genetics and the physical quality of the tested seeds. This work addressed important gaps in evaluating X-ray impacts and proposed a robust design and well-examined radiography protocol for a proven non-destructive seed quality analysis.

Plant phenotyping relevance

種子品質を非破壊に評価するX線ラジオグラフィーのプロトコルを検討・検証し、種子品質および発芽状態の測定法として方法論的貢献が中心に含まれる。

Code and data availability

The supplied blocks describe the paper's X-ray imaging, germination, and image-analysis pipeline, but contain no public deposit of the phenotype datasets, X-ray images, or the in-house Python/OpenCV/AVIZO analysis code, and no authors' public URL for such assets. The only URLs present are the license, ROR affiliations,

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