The Effect of Priming on Seed Performance of Canola (Brassica napus L.) Under Drought Stress

Abstract

In order to investigate the effect of priming on canola seed performance under drought stress a study was carried out at the Seed Research Laboratory of Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran. The experiment was a factorial with three factors arranged in a completely randomized design with three replications. The first factor was seed priming (control (untreated), KNO and distilled water), the second was drought stress levels (0.0, -0.3, 3 -0.6, -0.9, -1.2 and -1.5 MPa) and the third was canola cultivars (Okapi and Talayeh). Results indicated that for both cultivars germination percentage (GP), mean germination rate (MGR), radicle length (RL), plumule length (PL) and seedling dry weight (SDW) were reduced when drought stress level were increased from 0 to -1.5 MPa. Although, the cultivars showed different responses to the increased drought stress level. For all of the traits under study, the best results due to the priming treatments were obtained at the drought stress levels higher than -0.6 or -0.9 MPa. So that, at the -1.5 MPa of drought stress level, GP, MGR, RL, PL and SDW were improved 128.62, 200, 223.08, 350 and 69.94%, respectively by KNO and 21.44, 71.43, 219.23, 100 and 41.18%, respectively 3 by distilled water when compared with control. However, seeds primed with KNO showed better performance 3 than those primed with distilled water. In general, this study revealed that seed priming especially with KNO3 improved canola seed performance under drought stress condition. However, the improvements were more obvious at the higher levels of drought stress.