Effect of Osmopriming of Boro Rice Seeds on Field Establishment of Seedlings

Abstract

An experiment was conducted at the Seed Laboratory of the Department of Agronomy, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh during the period from January to April 2012 to study the effect of osmopriming of Boro rice seed (cv. BRRI dhan29). Seeds were soaked in 1%, 3% and 5% solutions of ZnSO₄, KCl and CaCl₂ for 24 hours, respectively, with 30 hours incubation at 35°C temperature. Seed quality tests such as percent germination, mean germination time, vigor index, shoot length, root length, shoot dry weight and root dry weight of rice seedlings were measured for all treatments. Population m^-2 was also calculated to investigate the field establishment of primed seeds. The highest germination, vigor index, population m^-2, shoot length and shoot dry weight at 15 and 30 DAS, root length at 15 DAS, root dry weight at 15 and 30 DAS and the lowest mean germination time was observed from priming of seeds with 3% ZnSO₄. Exceptionally, priming with 3% CaCl₂ showed the highest root length at 30 DAS. On the contrary, 3% and 5% CaCl₂ priming treatment showed the lowest germination, vigor index, population m^-2, shoot length and shoot dry weight at 15 and 30 DAS, root length at 15 DAS, root dry weight at 15 and 30 DAS and the highest mean germination time. It can be concluded that rice seed (cv. BRRI dhan29) can be primed with 3% ZnSO₄ solution for improving germination and field establishment of rice seedlings.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijasbt.v1i4.9131

 Int J Appl Sci Biotechnol, Vol. 1(4): 228-232