Energy related germination and survival rates of water-imbibed Arabidopsis seeds irradiated with protons

In order to investigate the influence of ion energy on the germination and survival rates, water-imbibed Arabidopsis seeds were irradiated with protons in atmosphere. The ion fluence used in this experiment was in the range of 4 × 109-1 × 1014 ions/cm2. The ion energy is from 1.1 MeV to 6.5 MeV. According to the structure of the seed and TRIM simulation, the ions with the energy of 6.5 MeV can irradiate the shoot apical meristem directly whereas the ions with the energy of 1.1 MeV cannot. The results showed that both the germination and survival rates decrease while increasing the ion fluence, and the fluence-respond curve for each energy has different character. Besides the shoot apical meristem (SAM), which is generally considered as the main radiobiological target, the existence of a secondary target around SAM is proposed in this paper.