Corn seeds are harvested on ears with a high water content to minimize deterioration while in the field but they are subjet to damage when submitted to artificial drying. In view of evidence that damage in membrane may occur due to high temperatures and/or high rates of drying and as the test of eletric condutivity being directly related to that sort of damage, in this experiment, the efficacy of the test to detect damage over drying was investigated. Samples of seeds of single corn hybrid BR-205 were submitted to drying treatments, resulting into different damage levels. The seeds of each level of damage during drying were submitted to four preimbibiton treatments, before immersion in water and the condutivity readings were performed after 8, 16 and 24 hours soaking. The design was completely randomized in a 3 x 4 x 3 factorial scheme (three damage during drying, four pre-imbibition methods and three reading times). The effects of all treatmens and the interactions were significant, except thr triple interaction damage during drying x imbibition method x reading time. The results showed that there are damage in seed membrane systems associated with the drying process, detectable by the test of electric conductivity, which proved efficient to distinguish lots with different damage caused by drying.
When seeds were pre-imbibed slowly before the setting-up of the test there was a high correlations
of conductivy values with the other quality parameters. The seed imbibing process during the
accomplishment of the test may cause damage to seeds, affecting the results of electric conductivity;
the larger the drying damage the larger the amount of solutes leached in the first hour?s of seed

imbibition.