EFFECT OF SEED PRIMING ON GERMINATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH OF BLACKGRAM UNDER SALT STRESS CONDITION

Abstract

A laboratory experiment was conducted at the Agronomy lab, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, during the period from December 2019 to March 2020 to investigate the potentiality of seed priming for induction of salt tolerance capability and the pre-sowing seed treatment with water and NaCl on germination behavior of blackgram (BARI Mush-3 and BARI Mush-4) under salt stress conditions. The whole experiment was divided into two experiments. In first work, two blackgram varieties were surface sterilized with 5% sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) solution, soaked in water and 2 mM and 3 mM NaCl for 6 hours and dry seed used as control. The highest total germination (97.32%), germination index (45.46), coefficient of velocity (21.04), energy of emergence (94.99%) and vigor index (157.00) were obtain from seeds primed in water BARI Mush-3 compare to BARI Mush-4 than all other treatments. In the second experiment, seeds were primed with distilled water and 2 mM and 3 mM NaCl for 6 hours; dry seed used as control and were exposed to 0, 50, 100, 150, and 200 mM NaCl induced salt stress conditions in Petri dishes. Priming with water followed by 2 mM were more effective than the control seed in inducing salt tolerance of blackgram cultivars owing to enhanced germination and growth parameters under salt stress condition. From the results of the study, it was observed that seeds primed with water for 6 hours showed the best result in comparison to 2 mM and 3 mM NaCl primed seed and dry seed.