Seed Quality Enhancement for Improving Planting Value of Fresh and Aged Seed Lots of Chickpea

Abstract

Background: Chickpea is the largest produced food legume in South Asia. It is mainly grown in dry or rainfed area, where patchy plant stand often results due to delayed and non-uniform emergence. Moreover, genotypes vary for seed germination and seedling vigour. Therefore, the study was undertaken to find most appropriate seed treatment for enhancement of planting value of desi and kabuli type chickpeas. Methods: Study was conducted at ICAR-IARI, New Delhi with fresh, 2 and 4 years stored seed lots of desi (Pusa 2028) and kabuli (Pusa 1108) varieties. The lots were compared with untreated (control) for quality and vigour parameters after giving seed enhancement treatments (SET); osmopriming, halopriming, solid matrix priming (SMP), thiram and neem khali. Result: Investigations revealed that SMP and thiram seed treatments significantly enhanced germination and field performance of fresh as well as aged seeds in these varieties. Effectiveness of treatments was found more pronounced in kabuli than desi type and thus confirmed the usefulness of SETs for poor vigour seeds. Results also showed that seed quality and vigour of both the types were significantly affected with time in storage. However, desi variety maintained satisfactory germination and field performance up to 2 years under ambient conditions of storage.