J. Agronomy & Crop Science 163, 174—176 (1989)© 1989 Paul Parey Scientific Publishers, Berlin and HamburgISSN 0931-2250

Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-3, India

Effect of Concentration of Seed Hardening Chemicalson Physiological Characters of Pearl Millet{Pennisetum typhoides Stapf and Hubb)

V. S. SHANMUGASUNDARAM and M. KANNAIYAN

Authors' address: Prof. V. S. SHANMUGASUNDARAM, M. KANNAIYAN, Department of Agronomy, TamilNadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore — 641 003, India

With one table

Received December 8, 1988; accepted February 27, 1989

Abstract

A laboratory study was taken up in the Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University,Coimbatore in the year 1986 to fix optimum concentration and to evaluate the efficiency of CCC (2-chloroethyl trimethyl ammonium chloride), succinic acid and sodium chloride as seed hardening chemicalsfor pearl millet. The study revealed that CGC 100 ppm, succinic acid 0.15 per cent and sodium chloride 1 percent concentrations were better in improving the germination per cent, root : shoot ratio and vigour index ofpearl millet.

Key words: Seed hardening, Vigour index root : shoot ratio. ^

Introduction

Pre-sowing seed hardening with water orchemicals have been developed as a potentialagro-technique for inducing drought toler-ance. Seed hardening with organic salts havebeen reported to be useful in many crops (AR-NON 1975). In this context, it is necessary tochoose the chemical best suited to the .crop andalso optimum concentrations.

Materials and Methods

A laboratory study was taken up to evaluate theefficiency of seed hardening chemicals in enhancingthe seedling vigour. Three chemicals were selected,each at four concentrations to optimize the dosage.The chemicals used and their concentrations aregiven below:1. CCC (2-chloro-ethyl trimethyl ammonium

chloride): 50 ppm, 100 ppm, 150 ppm and200 ppm.

2. Succinic acid: 0.1, 0.15, 0.2 and 0.25 per cent.3. Sodium chloride: 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 per cent.

Ten grams of seeds were soaked in each of the seedhardening chemicals at different concentrations. Thesoaking duration was 12 hours. Seeds in an activestage of germination were removed, air dried andgermination test was conducted. After seven days ofgermination the normal seedlings were counted andexpressed as germination percentage.

Shoot and root length

Ten seedlings from each treatment were taken atrandom from the standard germination test. Thelenght of the shoot and root was measured individu-ally for all the seedlings. The shoot length wasmeasured from collar region to the tip of the leaf androot length from the collar region to the tip of theprimary root.

Vigour indexVigour index was calculated adopting the formulaproposed by ABDUL BAKI and ANDERSON (1973) andexpressed by whole number.

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Effect of Concentration of Seed Hardening Chemicals on Physiological Characters of Pearl Millet 175

Vigour index: germination percentage x dry mat-ter productivity for 100 seedlings.

Dry matter

The seedlings used for growth measurements weredried in a hot air oven maintained at 80 °C for twodays, cooled and weighed. The dry matter contentwas expressed as mg per ten seedhngs.

Results and Discussion

Physiological characters like germination per-centage, vigour index and root : shoot ratiowere taken and the mean data recorded arepresented in the Table 1.

Germination per cent

The germination percentage of pearl milletway significantly influenced by varying con-centrations of all the three chemicals. Amongthe four concentrations of CCC recorded,maximum germination per cent at 100 ppmlevel. An increase in germination percentagewas recorded when the concentration of CCCwas increased from 50 to 100 ppm but beyond100 ppm it reduced the germination. Sodium

chloride at one per cent level recorded 87 percent followed by succinic acid 86 per cent at0.15 per cent concentration.

Vigour index

Among different concentrations of CCC,succinic acid and sodium chloride, CCC100 ppm, succinic acid at 0.15 per cent andsodium chloride 1.0 per cent recorded highervigour index compared to all other concentra-tions, treating the seeds with CCC 100 ppmrecorded the vigour index of 6222 which was12 per cent more than with CCC 50 ppm. Thehighest concentration of the three chemicalsrecorded the lowest, vigour index. Decrease inthe vigour index at the higher concentration ofCCC, succinic acid and sodium chloride insorghum was reported by RANGASAMY (1986).

Root : Shoot ratio

Among the three chemicals tried, the differ-ent concentrations of CCC alone influencedthe root : shoot ratio, seed treatment withCCC at 100 ppm recorded the highest root :shoot ratio. The different concentrations of

Table 1. Effect of sed hardening chemicals and their concentrations on germination, vigour index and rootshoot ratio (1986)

Chemical

CCC

Succeinic acid

Sodium chloride

Concentration

50 ppm100 ppm150 ppm200 ppmSEDCD 5 %0.10 %0.15 %0.20 %0.25 %SEDCD 5 %1.0%1.5 %2.0 %2.5 %SEDCD 5 %

Germinationper cent

85.4 (67.54)94.8 (76.85)82.8 (65.55)78.8 (62.59)0.9

1.9

79.0(62.88)86.0 (68.04)83.2 (65.87)71.8 (57.93)

1.3

2.987.0 (68.89)78.2 (62.20)76.4 (60.99)69.4 (46.42)

1.2

2.7

Vigourindex

5547622254884820225490

4989564245994206

223

486

5720547250404622

182349

Root : shootratio

1.671.761.641.550.040.091.541.641.521.480.06NS1.651.641.601.570.04NS

ARC sine values are in parenthesis NS — Non significant

176 SHANMUGASUNDARAM and KANNAIYAN, Effect of Concentration of Seed Hardening Chemicals

succinic acid and sodium chloride did not in-fluence significantly.

Zusammenfassung

Einflufi der Konzentration von samenhar-tenden Chemikalien auf physiologische Ei-genschaften von Perlhirse (Pennisetum ty-phoides Stapf and Hubb)

Ein Laboratoriumsexperiment wurde im De-partment of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricul-tural University, Coimbatore, im Jahre 1986durchgefiihrt, um Optimumkonzentrationensowie Wirkungen von CCC (2-Chloroethyl-trimethyl-Ammoniumchlorid), Bernsteinsaureund Natriumchlorid als samenhartende Che-

mikalien fiir Perlhirse zu untersuchen. DasExperiment zeigte, daf̂ CCC mit 100 ppm,Bernsteinsaure mit 0,15 % und Natriumchlo-rid mit 1 % die Keimfahigkeit (in Prozent), dieWurzel/Sprof^-Relation und die Keimkraft beiPerlhirse erhohten.

References

ABDUL BAKI, A. A., and J. D. ANDERSON, 1973:

Vigour determination in soybean seed multiplecriteria. Crop Sci. 2, 176—177.

ARNON, I., 1975: Physiological principles of dry-land crop production in physiological aspects ofDryland Farming (Ed). U.S. Gupta, Oxford andIBH Publishing Co., New Delhi.