An alternative method of the tetrazolium test established that the preconditioning period of soybean seeds could be successfully shortened from the traditionally 16 hours at 25ºC to 6 hours at 41ºC. Since this alternative method has been tested so far with a limited number of soybean cultivars, it is imperative that it should be tested for additional cultivars. The applicability of this alternative procedure of seed preconditioning was tested in ten soybean cultivars: BR-13, EMBRAPA 4, EMBRAPA 48, FT-Abyara, FT-5, IAS 5, OCEPAR-13, OCEPAR-14, OCEPAR-16, and OCEPAR-17. Two imbibition periods (4 h and 6 h) at 41ºC were tested and compared to the traditionally recommended period for preconditioning. The following tests were carried out: seed moisture content and tetrazolium through determinations of vigor, viability and level of mechanical damage, weathering and sting bug damage. From the results, the following conclusions can be drawn: a) seed preconditioninig for 6h at 41ºC resulted in adequate staining patterns of the seeds, allowing accurate estimates of vigor and viability; b) seed preconditioning for 4 h at 41°C did not develop adequate staining of the seeds, to correctly evaluate vigor and viability of the seeds; however, this procedure was efficient to identify sting bug damage on seeds.
tetrazolium Test; Glycine max (L.); viability; vigor