The effect of seed priming in chickpea under sodic soil

Abstract

Field experiments were conducted with four seed priming levels and two check pea varieties (BGD-72 and Shubhra) under sodic soil condition having pH more than 8.5 at the research farm of ICAR-Indian Institute of Seed Science, Mau during rabi 2015-16 and 2016-17. Observations on seed quality parameters were recorded during seedling stage and yield attributes and yield were recorded at maturity phase. Priming of seeds with KNO3@ 0.2% for 06 h significantly enhanced the seed germination, seedling dry weight, vigor index-II, number of branches, pod number, 1000 grain weight and grain yield followed by GA3@ 100ppm over hydro priming and unprimed control. Whereas GA3@ 100ppm priming showed significant enhancement in seedling length, vigor-I and plant height over rest of the treatments applied. Among the varieties evaluated, BGD-72 showed its superiority in terms of germination, seedling length, vigor- I, pod number and grain yield whereas, Shubhra exhibited higher seedling dry weight, vigor-II, plant height and 1000 grain weight.