Storage polysaccharides in germinating yellow lupine (Lupinus luteus L.)

Abstract

The yellow lupine (Lupinus luteus L. cv. Express) was cultured for 16 days in light or in darkness. During the first 3 days of germination starch and hemicelluloses were estimated in the seed organs, cotyledons and axis. Later the estimations were performed daily in cotyledons, shoots and roots of the cultured seedlings. Absence of starch was noted in cotyledons of airdry seeds and an abrupt starch synthesis in the first 24 hours of germination. nation. Degradation of starch, and hemicelluloses in cotyledons of the germinating yellow lupine was rapid and correlated strictly with losses in their dry weight. Similarly to starch synthesis, it showed no light dependence. On the other hand, light influenced synthesis of the studied polysaccharides in the shoot and the root of a develaping lupine seedling.