Seed priming: A comprehensive approach to alter the biotic and abiotic stresses of field crops

Abstract

Seed may be considered as the most important and vital factor which is structurally a fertilized matured ovule. Seed priming, the process of controlled hydration of seeds up to a level that permits pre-germinative metabolic activity of seed to proceed, but prevents actual emergence of the radicle. Seed priming is a simple, safe and effective technology which can be easily adopted by resource-poor farmers and moreover it has the potential to benefit such farmers in a numbers of other ways. Commercialisation of the seed priming technology has been expanded rapidly now a day. Seed priming is a popular, low cost and commercially used technique. For combating biotic and abiotic stress in crops and alleviating the detrimental effects of stress without much affecting its fitness seed priming emerges as a promising technology. Extensive study was done by various workers using different seed priming techniques viz. hydro-priming, halo-priming, osmo-priming, matrix priming, hormonal priming, nutri-priming, bio-priming etc.