Studies on impact of pre-sowing treatments on seedling growth, vigour and field establishment of karonda cultivars

Abstract

The experiment entitled “studies on seed germination in karonda cultivars” was carried out at College of Horticulture, Dr.Y.S.R. Horticultural University, Venkataramannagudem, Tadepalligudem, West Godavari District. The seeds of karonda cultivars viz., pink-fruited plants and green-fruited plants were treated with different pre-sowing treatments (IBA, KNO3, Thiourea) along with control and the experiment was carried out in Factorial Randomised Block Design with 3 replications comprising 14 treatment combinations. The experiment results indicate that the height of stem (5.29 cm, 9.11 cm, 13.58 cm and 17.65 cm at 30, 60, 90, 120 DAP respectively), root length (20.72 cm), root: shoot ratio (0.62), seedling vigour index–I (2,018.46 cm), seedling vigour index–II (205.56 g) and percentage of establishment in main field (98.57 %) were significantly superior in green fruited cultivar when compared to pink-fruited cultivar. Among different pre-sowing seed treatments KNO3 @ 2% was found to be superior for height of stem (5.47 cm, 9.74 cm, 14.51 cm and 18.86 cm at 30, 60, 90, 120 DAP respectively), root length (22.36 cm), root: shoot ratio (1.04), seedling vigour index–I (2690.70 cm), seedling vigour index–II (351.28 g) and percentage of establishment in main field (100 %) when compared to other treatments. The interaction of different pre-sowing seed treatments and cultivar’s combinations showed significant effect, green fruited seeds treated with KNO3 @ 2 % recorded better result for above said parameters.