AXAY BHUKER*, PUNEETH RAJ M. S., V. S. MOR, SATPAL AND SATYAWAN ARYA
Department of Seed Science & Technology
Forage Section, Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125004, India
*(e-mail: bhuker.axay@gmail.com)
(Received : 10 December 2023; Accepted : 29 December 2023)
SUMMARY
The study was conducted on fresh and one year old seed lot of two varieties of oat viz., OS 6 and HFO 611 in the laboratory of Seed Science and Technology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University during 2022-23. The seeds of both the lots of these varieties were haloprimed with solutions of different concentrations (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5%) of various salts viz., NaCl, CaCl2 and KNO3 for 14 h and 24 h at 20oC temperature and dried back to original moisture content. The results revealed that all of the halo-priming treatments demonstrated an improvement in seed germination and vigour indices for both varieties. The extent of improvement was more in the old seed lot as compared to the fresh seed lot. Among the treatments, maximum enhancement in fresh seed lot was observed in seeds primed with CaCl2 @ 1.5%, which was at par with NaCl @ 1.0%. However, for the old seed lot, CaCl2 @1.0% gave better results. Halo priming for a duration of 24 hours resulted in more enhancements in seed quality as compared to 14 hour halo priming duration. No significant difference was observed with a 14-hour priming duration in the fresh seed lots of both varieties. Halo-priming the seeds with CaCl2 @ 1.5% for 24 hours resulted in a 4.87% enhancement in seed germination as compared to the control for the fresh seed lot of variety HFO 611, whereas enhancement was 7.45% for OS 6 variety. Negative effect was observed on seed quality parameters when seeds were halo-primed for 14 h at higher concentrations (1.0 and 1.5%) of NaCl in old seed lots of both the varieties. In old seed lot of HFO 611 variety, germination reduced from 83.67% to 80.00% while in case of OS 6 variety it reduced from 77.33% to 74.00% when seeds were halo-primed with NaCl @ 1.5% for 14 h. It is concluded from the study that halo-priming is a beneficial technique for seed quality enhancement. Halo-priming of oat seeds with CaCl2 @ 1.5% at 20oC for 24 hours should be used to enhance the seed quality.
Key words: Halo-Priming, Seed Quality, Avena sativa, seed lots