Effect of osmopriming and drought stress on seed germination of Tagetes erecta

Subject Areas : Ecophysiology & Phytochemistry of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

محمد رفیعی الحسینی ¹ (استادیار گروه زراعت، دانشکده کشاورزی، دانشگاه شهرکرد)
سمیه اسماعیلی ² (دانشگاه شهرکرد)

Received: 2016-02-29 Accepted : 2016-03-22 Published : 2015-04-21

Keywords: Drought stress, Germination rate, Germination percentage, priming, PEG6000, Tagetes) Tagetes erecta),

Abstract :

In order to evaluate the seed germination indices of Tagetes) Tagetes erecta (under smopriming and drought stress treatments, an experiment was conducted as factorial in a randomized complete block design with three replications at the agronomy laboratory, faculty of agriculture, Shahrekord University. For this purpose, drought stress in levels of 0, -4, -8 and -12 bar and priming of seeds in levels of 0, -2, -4, -6 and -8 bar were applied using PEG6000. In this experiment, characteristics of germination percentage, germination rate, seed vigor index and mean germination time were evaluated. The results showed that by increasing drought stress from 0 to -4 bar, germination percentage, germination rate and seed vigor index significantly decreased while mean germination time increased and reached to 0 at the potentials of -8 and -12 bar. The maximum germination rate was observed at -2 bar priming whereas the increasing percentage was 24.91 compared to control. Also, it was found that by increasing drought stress, at the level of -4 bar, the maximum germination percentage, germination rate and seed vigor index obtained and the minimum of mean germination time was at -2 bar priming. In general, the osmopriming was able to increase the tolerance of Tagetes seeds against drought stress during germination and improve the properties of Tagetes seed germination.