Effect of priming treatments on germination and seedling growth of artificially aged seed of guava (Psidium guajava)

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of priming treatments on artificially aged seed germination and seedling growth of guava (Psidium guajava L.) at Department of Seed Science and Technology, CCS Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar during 2019–20. It is comprised 21 treatments in complete randomize design with three replications. There were five priming methods with different treatments under study i.e. tap water, GA3 (at 500, 700 and 1000 ppm concentration), KNO3 (at 0.5 and 1% concentration), thiourea (at 0.5 and 1% concentration) and HCl (at 5% and 10% for 2 and 4 min). Duration of tap water, GA3, KNO3 and thiourea soaking was kept 24 and 48 hours. The study revealed that priming the artificially aged seeds in KNO3 greatly increased germination, especially soaking of artificially aged seeds in KNO3 at 1% for 48 h which shows up to 45.0% germination. Parameter like germination%, mean germination time, seedling length, seedling dry weight and seedling vigour were positively affected by all the priming treatments. Artificially aged seed viability decreased but the standard germination efficiently increased due to priming treatments. KNO3 at 1% for 48 h improved germination and resulted in maximum dry weight of seedling (206.0 mg), seedling length (4.16 cm) and vigour index I and II (187.0 and 9271.0) in laboratory. Artificially aged seeds without any priming treatments showed poor growth and germination.