Agro-meteorological indices, phenological stages and productivity of durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.) influenced by seed soaking and foliar spray of stress mitigating bio-regulators under conserved moisture condition

Abstract

An experiment was conducted atAgricultural Research Station, Anand Agricultural University, Dhandhuka during the rabi seasons of the years 2017-18 and 2018-19 to determine the response of meteorological indices on seed soaking and foliar sprays of stress mitigating bio-regulators under conserved soil moisture conditions in durum wheat. The experiment comprised of four treatments of seed soaking viz; No seed soaking (S0), Seed soaking with water (S1), Seed soaking with 100 ppm Salicylic acid (S2) and Seed soaking with 500 ppm Thiourea (S3) and four treatments of foliar spray viz; No spray(C0), Water spray (C1), 100 ppm Salicylic acid spray (C2) and1000 ppm Thiourea spray (C3) of stress mitigating bio–regulators on durum wheat var. GADW 3 was conducted in Randomized Block Design (Factorial). The results showed significant response for growing degree days (GDD), Helio thermal units (HTU), Helio thermal use efficiency (HTUE) to attain different phenological stages (emergence, CRI, tillering, flag leaf, heading, milking, dough and maturity). On the pooled basis, significantly higher heat use efficiency of grain yield recorded under seed soaking with salicylic acid (100 ppm) (S2) and foliar spray of salicylic acid (100 ppm) (C2) was 1.31 & 1.28 (kg/ha/0C day) respectively, over no seed soaking (S0) and no foliar spray (C0). However, it was found at par with seed soaking with 500 ppm thiourea (S3) as well as 1000 ppm foliar spray of thiourea spray (C3).