Seed priming to improve germination and seedling growth of ...

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EurAsian Journal of BioSciences 6: 76-84 (2012) Fig. 1. Effect of different salinity levels on germination percentage (a) and mean germination time (b) of primed (NaCl and KCl) and non-primed (control) seeds of safflower. seeds, when exposed to salinity stress. Increasing salinity causes a significant decrease (P
EurAsian Journal of BioSciences 6: 76-84 (2012) Fig. 3. Effect of different salinity levels on seedling and radicle length of primed (NaCl and KCl) and non-primed (control) seeds of safflower. g/L to reach 0.84 g at 20 g/L (Table 2). However, primed seed showed the better performance than nonprimed seeds. Data in Table 3 shows that NaCl seed priming enhanced safflower seedling fresh and dry weight of about 83.38% and 71.42% respectively as compared to control (Fig. 4). This value was significantly higher for NaCl seed priming (2.09 g) and KCl seed priming (1.89 g) than control seeds (1.68 g). DISCUSSION The present study has investigated the effect of salinity and seed priming on germination and seedling growth of safflower. Data showed that salinity had significantly affected safflower germination. This study demonstrated that germination recorded from primed seeds were significantly different from un-primed seeds when exposed to different salinity levels. Similar findings Elouaer and Hannachi Fig. 4. Effect of different salinity levels on seedling fresh and dry weight of primed (NaCl and KCl) and non-primed (control) seeds of safflower. were reported by Kaya et al. (2006). Primed seeds had better efficiency for water absorption from growing media, that’s why metabolic activities in seed during germination process commence much earlier than radicle and plumule appearance (Hopper et al. 1979). In general, increasing salinity causes a decrease in safflower germination; this may be due to the toxic effects of Na + and Cl - in the process of germination (Khajeh-Hosseini et al. 2003). It seems also that, salinity stress affects seed germination via the limitation of seed water absorption (Dodd and Donovan 1999), excessive use of nutrient pool (Bouaziz and Hicks 1990) and creation of disorders in protein synthesis. Mean germination time increased significantly with increasing salinity. NaCl and KCl primed safflower seeds germinated earlier than unprimed ones as it has been reported by Ashraf and Rauf (2001) working with other priming treatments, such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), inorganic salts or 80
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