How Seed Size and Wate r Stress Effect the Seed Germination and Seedling Growth in Wheat Varieties?

Abstract

Water stress has adverse impacts on crop growth, yield and quality parameters thus, considered among serious constraints to agriculture production. Under depleting natural resources, environmental fluctuation and increased risk of epidemic outbreak, the task of sufficient wheat production has become a serious problem. In this study, effect of seed size and water stress was analyzed in three wheat varieties (PBW-154, UP-2338, and UP-2425). Three seed size classes (large, medium, small) of each wheat variety were kept under four water stress levels. It was observed that the shoot length and root length were highly sensitive to water stress and showed minimum growth at highest water stress level. The comparison of varieties, seed size classes and water stress levels showed that in terms of seedling growth variety UP-2338 was more resistant to water stress as compared to other varieties, whereas in terms of germination variety PBW-154 was more resistant. Variety UP-2425 showed maximum reduction in seed germination with increasing water stress (33.3% at -15 bar stress level). Among seed size, large sized seeds showed highest seed germination (91.9%) followed by medium (89.7%) and small (82.8%) sized seeds.