Osmotic and salinity effects on germination
Seeds in saline environments face a dilemma between allocating reserves to either osmotic balance or growth and development. Zhang et al. show that barley seeds incubated in saline solutions germinate more rapidly than seeds in iso-osmotic PEG solutions. This suggests that barley seeds use salt as a metabolically cheap cellular osmotica, facilitating rapid germination under moderately saline conditions.
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