Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


germination. Some of the genes were complementary in action
while others behaved as duplicates, triplicates, or quadruplicates.
Delayed germination after maturity is apparently unknown in
maize while premature germination has not been definitely iden-
tified in peanuts but is suspected to occur occasionally.
 Inheritance of required rest period of peanut seeds has been
studied with selected strains of the several groups and hybrids
between them. Rest periods were measured by harvesting in-
dividual plants when a characteristic stage of maturity was
reached, planting shelled seeds 10 days later in a greenhouse,
and recording dates of emergence. Considerable variation in
stage of maturity of seeds on a single plant usually existed.
Those used for tests of rest period were selected within a nar-
row range judged by the color developed on the inner surface
of the pod. By selecting older seeds of plants slightly immature
and younger seeds of those fully mature it was possible to secure
samples well balanced in that respect. Tests of rest period in
seedso-f different ages indicated that rest requirement increases
slowly up to a point where the seed may be judged fully mature
and then gradually declines.
 Seeds were planted in clean sand to a depth of one-half inch
and watered thoroughly at regular intervals. Sand tempera-
tures were maintained near 250 C. except in rare cases when
extremes of 100 C. and 350 C. were reached. Tests of effects
of moisture and temperature variations on rate of after-
ripening were conducted supplementary to inheritance studies
with seeds of Florida Runner and Spanish peanuts. Large sam-
ples of each kind were placed in different storage conditions
soon after harvest and small sub-samples were planted from
each lot at intervals of two to seven days. Progress of after-
ripening with different conditions of storage was thus indirectly
measured by time required to complete the process in the green-
house. There were no significant differences in rate of after-
ripening in Florida Runner seeds stored over a drying agent,
open to the outside air, and over water. Moisture contents of
the stored seeds were 7 percent, 9 percent and 16 percent, re-
spectively.
 Rest requirements dropped rapidly in Florida Runner peanuts
stored in an open shed at 20-250 C. (Figure 1, curve "b") and
more rapidly in storage at 400 C. (curve "a"). At 3 C. pro-
gress of after-ripening was greatly retarded (curves "c" and
"d"). Storage at 3 C. increased the rest requirement of Span-