Effect of late Sowing and Hydropriming Time on some Seed Vigour Attributes of Five Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) Lines

Abstract

A set of laboratory tests was conducted in 2015, at the Central Seed laboratory Seed Administration, Ministry of Agriculture andForestry, Khartoum, Sudan, with the objective to investigate the effect of late sowing and hydro priming times on some seed vigour attributes of five chickpea lines ( DR1-27-5; DR1-44; DR1-109; DR1-114 and DR1- 115). Seeds were provided by Hudeiba Research Station, from planting at optimum sowing date (November); late sowing (January) of the harvest of season 2011/2012. The experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with four replications. Treatments were sowing dates(2), hydropriming time (4) and chickpea lines (5) Data were collected on initial moisture content, 100 seed weight, germination percentage and rate, seedling fresh and dry weights. The results indicated that late sowing had highly significant (P ≤ 0.01) effect on seed vigour by affecting seed moisture content, 100 seed weight, germination percentage and seedlingdry weight. The lines and hydropriming time showed significant (P ≤ 0.01) effect on all studied parameters. There were positive significant (P ≤ 0.01) correlation between moisture content, 100-seed weight, germination percent and seedling fresh and dry weights; but all these parameters were negatively correlated with rate of germination. Further studies are neededto investigate, in depth, the mechanism of heat tolerance and determination of the appropriate hydro-priming time for chickpea seeds