Effect of seed priming on growth parameters of soybean.

Abstract

The beneficial effects of seed priming have been demonstrated for many field crops. The objective of this study was to study the effect of seed priming on growth parameters of soybean (Glycine max L.) cv. William-82. For this purpose, experiments were conducted at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan during summer 2003 and 2004. Three seed priming durations (6, 12 and 18 h) and five Polyethylene glycol (PEG 8000) concentrations (0, 100, 200, 300 and 400 g L -1 water) along with dry seed (non primed) as control treatment were included in the experiment. Analysis of the two years average data indicated that AGR, CGR decreased with increase in seed priming duration at I1 during 2003 and AGR, CGR and RGR also showed the same trend at I1 during 2004. Conversely, RGR increased with increase in seed priming duration at I2 during 2003. AGR and CGR enhanced with increase in PEG concentration from 0 to 300 g PEG L -1 water and thereafter decreased at I2 during 2003. Primed seed plots recorded higher AGR and CGR as compared with non-primed seed plots at I1 during 2004 and RGR showed the same trend at I1 and I2 during 2003.