Influence of Seed Hardening Techniques on Vigor, Growth and Yield of Wheat under Drought Conditions

Abstract

Exploring ways to improve stand establishment and crop productivity under abiotic stresses like drought is important. Two years experiments were conducted at University of Agriculture, Peshawar-Pakistan to examine the efficacy of six pre-sowing seed hardening agents. Seeds of wheat cultivar Uqab-2000 were hardened in six different chemicals of various concentration viz; PEG-8000 (10%), CaCl 2 (4%), KNO 3 , (3%), Mannital (4%), NaCl (5%), Na 2 SO 4 (2%) along with water soaking and dry seeds as control for 24 hours and drying back to original moisture content at room temperature. The soaking and drying of seeds was repeated twice for 12 hours. The results showed that pre-sowing hardening of seed with PEG-8000, CaCl 2 and KNO 3 gave higher germination, decreased days to 50% germination, increased shoot length, root length, seedling fresh and dry weight in laboratory experiment as compared with other hardening and control treatment. Under field conditions, maximum plant height (93.53cm), spikelet's spike -1 (17.16), grains spike -1 (50.82), 1000 grain weight (39.97 g), grain yield (3.43 tha -1 ) and maximum harvest index (32.5%) were observed in PEG-8000 hardened seed than control treatment (2.82 tha -1). Seed hardened in PEG-8000, CaCl 2 and KNO 3 gave 30% increase in grain yield as compared to Mannital, NaCl and Na 2 SO 4 which gave 15% increase in grain yield over control treatment.

Effect of seed invigoration by osmo-conditioning on radicle emergence and physiological parameters of the true seed of shallot (Allium ascalonicum L.)

“…The findings further support the earlier work on wheat (Triticum aestivum) (Amin et al 2016) and rice (Oryza sativa) (Lee, Kim 2000), where an improved germination rate and percentage in seeds subjected to seed invigoration for 24 hours were reported. Seed invigoration with other osmotic solutions, such as seed priming with GA3, osmoconditioning with PEG-6000 (Dursan, Ekinci 2010) and hydropriming with distilled water for 24 hours, significantly reduced the germination time and improved the emergence rate and seedling vigour.…”

“…The germination of onion seeds, for example, especially under stressful conditions, such as low temperatures, continues to be a matter of significant importance to growers who plant the seed directly in the field. Seed enhancement through invigoration or priming has resulted in a significant improvement in the farmers' ability to achieve this goal both in an open and controlled environment (Amin et al 2016). Seed invigoration is a pre-sowing, controlled-hydration environment in which seeds are exposed to an external water potential that is sufficiently low enough to prevent radicle protrusion, but is able to stimulate physiological and biochemical activities (Adetunji et al 2021).…”

Appropriate seed source and rate enhanced the productivity of bread wheat varieties under irrigated conditions in North Mecha, Amhara region, Ethiopia

“…Bread wheat seeds sourced from formal and intermediary seed systems produced the highest SL compared to seeds sourced from farmers. Khan et al [ 22 ] reported that the longest SL (17.5 cm) was obtained from seeds sourced from (formal) compared to farmer-saved seed (15.6 cm) which supports our current study results. Similarly, a report by Ref.…”

“…Similar results that supported current study reported by Refs. [ 16 , 22 ] indicated that wheat seed sources had a significant effect on TKW. In addition, rice seed sources had a significant difference in 1000-grain weights [ 30 ].…”

Yield and nutritional quality of intercropped forages for organic production in a hot-summer Mediterranean oak grassland ecosystem

“…During the pre-sowing period (July to September), only a meager 10.4 mm of precipitation accumulated in the 2019 GS, in stark contrast to the more than 70 mm recorded in the same period for the 2020 GS (Table 1). Considering that the average for this period, as indicated by the 30-year time series in Table 1, slightly exceeds the 27 mm accumulated, the contrasting precipitation levels-below-average in 2019 and well above-average in 2020-inevitably resulted in a significantly lower germination capacity and initial growth (Amin et al 2016;Grahmann et al 2021) of FA seeds in the 2019 GS compared to those in the 2020…”