Seed priming enhances early seed emergence and proper crop stand establishment which enables the crop to capture more soil moisture, nutrients, and solar radiation. An on-farm experiment was conducted in Okhaldhunga, Nepal to study the effect of six different priming treatments (50 millimoles common salt solution, 200 millimoles urea solution, 1 percent MOP solution, 2.5 times diluted urine, water, and control) on germination and growth of two maize varieties, Manakamana-3 and Nutan-IL60. The experiment was set up in factorial randomized complete block design with three replications. Various germination traits: germination percent, seedling vigour, germination index, mean germination time, and seedling growth traits: shoot length, root length, and dry root weight, were studied. Nitrogen-based (Urea and Urine) priming resulted the most desirable change for the studied traits. Nitrogen-based priming also had significant positive effect on stress tolerance related traits like root length and dry root weight.

An experiment was conducted to study the effect of gibberellic acid (GA3) on quality attributes of calendula (Calendula officinalis L.). Single factorial experiment based on completely randomized design including 7 treatments and 3 replications was carried out. The treatments used were different concentrations of GA3 (0, 50, 100,150, 200, 250 and 300 ppm). Results showed that foliar application of GA3 had positive effect on quality of calendula flowers. First bud initiation and first flowering were recorded significantly earlier (p<0.05) if plants were sprayed with T5 (GA3@200ppm) treatment. Similarly, the study showed that the maximum flower diameter (6.43 cm) was recorded in T6 (GA3@250ppm) which was significantly similar (p>0.05) to T5 (GA3@200ppm) treatment whereas minimum flower diameter (4.19 cm) was recorded in control. Significant differences (p<0.05) among treatments were recorded in weight of flower where maximum weight of flower (3.77 gm) was recorded in T6 (GA3@250ppm), while minimum weight of flower (2.86 gm) was recorded in control plants. These results suggest that GA3 of dose 200 ppm to 250 ppm was ideal for enhancing the quality of flowers in calendula.