Biochemical changes during imbibition stages of seed priming in Tomato

Abstract

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is one of the major consuming vegetable all over the world. We are in a position to improve or enhance the productivity of tomato seeds. Now a days, the seed enhancement techniques i.e., seed priming is widely use to improve uniform germination and yield. Against this background, this research was undertaken with the imbibition stages of seed priming in tomato seeds. Tomato seed priming involves 48 h of seed imbibition and subsequent dehydration (hydropriming) (Venkatasubramanium and Umarani, 2007) [10]. Tomato seeds were subjected to 12, 24, 36 and 48 h of imbibition. Seed samples from each of the seed imbibition duration along with control was subjected to various analysis viz., moisture content of the seeds, α-amylase content, starch content and total sugar content without subjecting to dehydration. The moisture content, α-amylase content and total sugar content of the seeds during various stages of imbibition, goes on increasing from 12 h of imbibition to 48 h of imbibition than control. The starch content was gradually decreased among various stages of imbibition than control.