Effect of Seed Hydropriming on Seedling Emergence and Growth of Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) under Adverse Climatic Condition of Drought and Salinity

Aim: Assessment of influence of seed hydropriming in seed and seedling vigour enhancement for stress tolerance in chickpea which is important for successful crop production under erratic climate change causing drought and salinity stress severely affecting the seedling emergence and establishment especially in arid and semi arid regions of the world.

Study Design: A three factorial randomised block design was used in the study, involving seed hydropriming treatment, chickpea varieties and growth conditions.

Place and Duration of the Study: The experiment was conducted in Department of Seed Science and Technology, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad, India, during the year 2018.

Methodology: Six months old chickpea seeds of variety JG-11 and Annigeri-1 were hydroprimed for 12 hours at 25°C in dark condition. The primed and unprimed control seeds are sown under normal, drought and salinity conditions imposed in pots under controlled conditions. The data recorded were analysed for Analysis of Variance (ANNOVA).

Results: The result of the experiment revealed that, upon seed hydropriming an average of 19 per cent increase in seedling emergence and 53.3 per cent increase in seedling vigour index was observed as compared to unprimed control seeds irrespective of variety and the abiotic stress conditions.