SEED HYDROPRIMING–A NICE TOOL FOR ENHANCEMENT OF VIABILITY AND VIGOUR IN COWPEA
V. S. MOR, AXAY BHUKER*, O. S. DAHIYA AND V. P. SANGWAN
Department of Seed Science & Technology
CCS Haryana Agricultural Univeristy,
Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : bhuker.axay@gmail.com)
(Received : 18 June 2014; Accepted : 24 July 2014)
SUMMARY
An effort was made to standardize the hydropriming technique in cowpea (var. CS-88) for which the equal weight of seed was soaked in three different volumes of water (half, equal and double the volume of seed weight) for five different durations of 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 h. It was observed from this study that maximum germination (87.00%), faster speed of germination (16.80%), maximum vigour index-I (2539.10),field emergence index (9.74) and maximum seedling establishment (78.17%) with minimum electrical conductivity (1.03 mS/cm/seed) were observed in the seed which were soaked for 2 h in double the volume of water being sufficient to enhance the quality of cowpea seed. Hydropriming for 4, 8 and 16 h was observed to deteriorate the seed quality parameters.
Key words: Hydropriming, cowpea, seed quality, seed soaking, vigour, viability