In chemistry, biology, medical sciences and pharmaceutical industries, many reactions have to be checked by transporting and mixing expensive liquids. For such purposes, microfluidics systems consisting of closed channels with external pumps have been useful. However, the usage has been limited because of high fabrication cost and need for a fixed setup. Here, we show that open-capillary channe...

The assumption that seeds imbibe most of the water required for germination as liquid through seed-to-soil contact has been a dominant theme in germination research and seeding technology. Under most conditions, seeds are also exposed to water vapour during imbibition, but the relative contributions of liquid and vapour are difficult to assess. In water uptake models that include vapour, proced...

The responses of two cultivars of soybean (Merr.) to a chilling treatment (4 C for first hour of imbibition) were compared. The germination of cv. Biloxi was unaffected by the treatment, while the germination of cv. Fiskeby was reduced. The phospholipid fatty acids of dry axes of the two cultivars were very similar, and, thus, could not be correlated with their responses to chilling. The fatty ...

Upon imbibition, dry seeds rapidly gain metabolic activity and the switching on of a germination-specific transcriptional programme in the nucleus goes ahead, with the induction of many nucleus-encoded transcripts coding for plastid-localized proteins. Dedifferentiated plastids present in dry seeds differentiate into chloroplasts in cotyledons and into amyloplasts in the root and in the hypocot...

The Washburn equation is widely accepted for describing capillary imbibition. It has, however, been shown to be insufficient at very short times due partly to the lack of inertial terms. Bosanquet (C. H. Bosanquet, Philos. Mag. ser. 645, 525 (1923)) applied an inertial term via momentum, Szekely et al. (J. Szekely, A. W. Neumann, and Y. K. Chang, J. Colloid Interface Sci.35, 273 (1971)) examine...

We investigate both drainage and spontaneous imbibition processes at the pore scale using a combination of microfluidic experiments and lattice-Boltzmann (LB) flow calculations. First, we have fabricated a range of specifically designed etched micro-models to investigate the role of pore shape and throat width on fluid displacement. These designs include junctions with both equal and unequal ch...

Since seed reserves can influence seed germination, the quantitative and qualitative differences in seed reserves may relate to the germination characteristics of species. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the correlation between germination and seed reserves, as well as their mobilization during germination of six grassland species (Chloris virgata, Kochia scoparia, Lespedeza hedysaroid...

The impact of cold radiofrequency air plasma on the wetting properties and water imbibition of beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) was studied. The influence of plasma on wetting of a cotyledon and seed coat (testa) was elucidated. It was established that cold plasma treatment leads to hydrophilization of the cotyledon and tissues constituting the testa when they are separately exposed to plasma. By con...

During spontaneous imbibition, a wetting liquid is drawn into a porous medium by capillary forces. Recently, anomalous scaling properties of front broadening during spontaneous imbibition of water in Vycor glass, a nanoporous medium, were reported. The mean height and the width of the propagating front increase with time t both proportional to t. We argue that this anomalously large roughening ...

Seeds of the common ice plant (Mesembryanthemum crystallinum) germinate in distinct sub-populations over a time period of more than 4 weeks following imbibition. Distinguishing early (E)- and late (L)-germinating seeds is the expression of a homologue of the transcriptional activator VP1. The deduced amino acid sequence of ice plant VP1 (MVP1) is 39% identical (50% similar) to the sequence of t...