Effect of Different Priming Methods on Germination Behaviour of Rice in Drought Environment

Abstract

Drought is a major abiotic stress that hinders germination and seedling growth in rice. Proper priming of seeds prior to sowing has been a well-established technique to improve germination and seedling growth under drought. An experiment was conducted in Agronomy lab of Lamjung campus to study the effectiveness of different priming methods in improving germination of rice under water stress. Experiment was laid out in Complete Randomized Design with 10 treatments each replicated three times. Treatments used were hydropriming, halopriming (NaCl @ 1% and 2%), osmopriming (PEG-600 @ 1%, 2%, 5% and 10%), hormonal priming (GA₃ @ 2.5 ppm and 5 ppm) and control (without priming). Osmotic potential of -1 bars was created using PEG-4000. Result showed that hydropriming significantly reduced mean germination time but did not subsequently enhance other germination parameters and total germination than unprimed seeds. NaCl improved the overall germination percentage but not the speed of germination and proved to be effective particularly at lower concentration of 1%. In contrast increasing concentrations of GA₃ resulted in better germination and seedling vigor indices. Priming rice seeds with PEG were found more effective in improving germination, seedling vigor and dry matter accumulation. In all the parameters, the effect of priming with PEG improved with increasing concentration from 1% to 10%. The results concluded that priming with PEG and GA3 at higher concentration would be beneficial in improving germination behavior of rice seeds in a comparatively drier condition.

Keywords: Drought stress, germination, halopriming, hydropriming, PEG

Cite this Article

Aryal B, Subedi R, Neupane N. Effect of Different Priming Methods on Germination Behaviour of Rice in Drought Environment. Research & Reviews: Journal of Crop Science and Technology. 2018; 7(2): 22–28p