Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2017
Investigations with exogenous test solutions showed that abscisic acid (ABA) inhibited germination of nondormant seeds and that gibberellins (GA) promoted the germination of yellow foxtail (Setaria lutescens (Weigel) Hubb.) The effect of the promoters was much more readily demonstrated with excised caryopses than with intact seeds. Cytokinins reversed ABA inhibition of germination; GA did not, but the two promoters in combination were more effective than the cytokinin alone. The reversal occurred only at one end of the embryonic axis, the shoot end. An endogenous inhibitor was extracted from dormant and nondormant yellow foxtail seeds and compared with ABA by chromatography, electrophoresis, and bioassays. The extracted inhibitor was very similar to ABA in six paper-chromatography solvent systems, three paper electrophoresis runs at different pH values, and three bioassays. Paper electrophoresis was an effective means of separating the two plant hormones, ABA and gibberellic acid (GA3).