Studies of different priming treatments on germination of guava cultivar L-49 under lab condition

Abstract

Present study was conducted to investigate the influence of priming and pre-sowing treatments on fresh seed germination and seedling growth of guava (Psidium guajava L.) cultivar L-49, at Department of Seed Science & Technology and Horticulture, CCS HAU, Hisar during the year 2018-19 and 2019-20. Five priming methods with different treatments were tried under the study, which consisted of tap water soaking for 24 and 48 hours, potassium nitrate (KNO3) soaking (at 0.5 and 1% concentration) for 24 and 48 hours, Thiourea soaking (at 0.5 and 1 per cent concentration) for 24 and 48 hours, GA3 soaking (500, 700 and 1000 ppm) for 24 and 48 hours and Hydrochloric acid (HCl) (5% and 10% for 5 and 10 minutes). The study revealed that pre-soaking the seeds in KNO3 greatly increased the germination, especially soaking the fresh guava seeds in 1 per cent KNO3 solution for 48 hours. This showed up to 74 per cent germination under lab conditions and growth parameters like germination per cent, mean germination time, seedling length, seedling height, stem diameter and seed vigour index I & II. Seed viability decreased but the standard germination efficiently increased due to priming treatments whereas poor germination as well as lesser vigour was observed in the untreated seeds, as compared to the treated ones.