Effect of seed priming on growth, flowering and cut flower quality of carnation

Abstract

Carnation is one of the most important commercially grown flowers in the world. It has wide variations inshape and colours as well as good keeping quality. The present experiment was conducted to study the effectsof seed priming through various chemicals such as salicylic acid, glycine betaine, potassium nitrate, ascorbicacid and hydropriming on growth and floral quality attributes of carnation. The seeds were pre-treated withdifferent priming agents (salicylic acid 100 mg/L, glycine betaine 1536 mg/L, potassium nitrate 10 g/L, ascorbicacid 50 mg/L, and water) for 24 hours and then sown in clay pots. Seeds without treatment were served ascontrol. Sowing was done on 21-10-2014 during year 1 and on 20-10-15 during year 2. Seeds were sown inpots and after two months of sowing, seedlings were transplanted into clay pots till flowering. Hydropriming(water treatment) resulted in the maximum seed germination (43.04%) and took minimum days to initiate firstflower bud (87 days). Salicylic acid treated seeds resulted in the plants with delayed flower bud initiation andhad maximum flower stalk length (3.08 cm), root length (21.89 cm), fresh weight of foliage (54.35 g), dry weightof foliage (16.66 g), fresh weight of roots (3.97 g), dry weight of roots (1.64 g), total biomass per plant (52.84g), and longer length of growth cycle (177.5 days). Potassium nitrate treatment showed the maximum freshweight per flower (4.24 g), dry weight per flower (0.95 g) and flower stalk diameter (10.44 mm). The minimumfresh and dry weights per flower were recorded (2.750, 68 g respectively) in unprimed seeds.