The Rules for Seed Testing (BRASIL, 1976) bring specifics requirements of temperature, light, substrate and treatments to break dormancy, to run standard germination tests in seeds of Panicum maximum Jacq.. But they are not especific about the amount of potassium nitrate solution to moist the substrate and so the seed analist is the responsible for it. There is a great probability that a large number of seed analists are using an excess of solution on regular test and so this work was planned and carried out in the Seed Laboratory of the ?Luiz de Queiroz? Agriculture College, Brazil, to study that problem. The data collected showed that an excess of solution was harmful to seed germination and that it is possible to control satisfactorily the amount of solution to add in the substrate using a practical method.