Effect of Pre-sowing Salicylic Acid Seed Treatment on Seed Germination and Growth of Greenhouse Sweet Pepper Plants

Akbarimehr Hanieh

doi:10.17485/ijst/2013/v6i1.13

Abstract

This experiment was carried out to determine the effect of pre-sowing treatment of Salicylic acid (SA) on seed germination and growth of greenhouse sweet pepper, Cadia cultivar. In this research, pre-sowing seed treatment of Salicylic acid at three different concentrations (0.0, 0.1 and 0.5 mM) was applied during 120 days of growth, and the higher concentration led to a better germination percentage and faster growth rate. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications was applied for statistical analysis and factors such as seedling growth rate as well as some qualitative and quantitative characters of fruit were assayed. Results showed that 0.5 mM SA as a pre-sowing seed treatment had a significant effect on all of the measured growth factors and germination rate. In addition, 0.5 mM SA had the highest values of in fruit diameter, fruit length, fruit weight, fruit number per plant, stem diameter, plant height, total fruit yield per plant and fruit titrable acidity (TA). However, pre-sowing treatment of SA in different concentrations had no significant effect on leaf and fruit dry mass and vitamin C. The results of this research can be of use for greenhouse owners to increase the growth rate and also fruit yield of pepper plants.

Highlights

Nowadays, by increasing the population of the whole world and not enough agricultural space in the environment, humans are trying to provide their first needs which are health and food
Pre-sowing seed treatment of Salicylic acid at three different concentrations (0.0, 0.1 and 0.5 mM) was applied during 120 days of growth, and the higher concentration led to a better germination percentage and faster growth rate
Pre-sowing treatment of Salicylic acid (SA) had a significant effect on germination percentage. 0.5 mM SA resulted in the highest germination (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

By increasing the population of the whole world and not enough agricultural space in the environment, humans are trying to provide their first needs which are health and food This has led to some debates on high quality production of fruit and vegetables (Bosland and Votava, 1999). Bell Pepper is one of the important vegetable crops in international and national markets and its importance is because of its nutritional values This fruit is a rich source of natural colors and antioxidant compounds i.e. vitamin C and carotenoids. The present study aim to analyze if pre-sowing treatment of SA improves germination percentage, seedling growth rate as well as some of the qualitative and quantitative characters

Methods

Results

Conclusion