The effects of pH during treatment of lettuce seeds with chlorine-releasing compounds on germination and seedling development

Hypochlorite seed treatments have been reported in the literature as giving variable results. We report experiments on this topic in which lettuce seeds were used as a model biological system. Seeds were treated for 2 h with solutions of sodium hypochlorite diluted with buffers of pH 9·8, 10·8 and 11·8, or with the buffers alone. Only the seeds treated with hypochlorite diluted with pH 9·8 buffer showed increased numbers of abnormal seedlings when subsequently germinated. In an experiment in which lettuce seeds were treated with sodium dichloroisocyanurate (a chlorine-releasing triazine compound) and related non-chlorinated compounds, seedling abnormalities were related to chlorine in solution. Measurements of pH together with the known chemistry of hypochlorite suggest that the damaging agent in these experiments was the biocidal undissociated hypochlorous acid.