Evaluation Of Differential Response Of Herbal Priming For Augmenting Drought Tolerant Potentiality In Few Commercially Important Indian Rice Varieties (Oryza Sativa L, Var Indica)

Abstract

Abiotic stress (drought)-a prime threat to the farming community, causing intolerance and less crop productivity in arid and semi-arid regions around the globe.Seed priming is an important hydration technique whereseeds are soaked at a controlled manner and at different condition that helps in increasing crop yield and greater emergence of root and shoot under drought stress and also allow pre- germination of seeds.This priming technique imparts greater seed germination performance, ensuring uniformity,greater tolerance against abiotic stress. Priming method should be cost effective,simple,easy, affordable to the user and must be ecofriendly. To develop crop plant with enhanced tolerance of drought stress, various conventional and genetic approach has been performed, which require great power, cost, skill, and time. The use of natural primer (herbal extract) rather than synthetic one is very much reliable as it is environment friendly and are known to accumulate in plants under stress condition and can act as potent antioxidant that helps in scavenging Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) produced during abiotic stress and later one causes physiological changes by reducing the fertility of soil and is costly.An experiment was conducted in Randomized Block Design to analyse the efficiency of flower extracts of Marigold (Tagetes patula L), Family (Asteraceae) , Rose ( Rosa rubiginosa), family (Rosaceae), Hibiscus (Hibiscus- roa sinensis) , Family(Malvaceae)—using as priming agent to different rice seed varieties viz Satabdi (IET-4786), Jaya (IET-723), Swarna (MTU-7029) and Cottondora Sannalu (MTU- 1010) against.In the present experiment artificially, drought was mimicked upon the varieties using Poly carboxy Betaine(PCB) and the artificially drought induced seed used for priming with the herbal extract. Data were recorded in terms of seed germination, seedling development, free radicle scavenging potentiality and assessment of alpha amylase as germination indicator.From this study it was revealed that herbal priming shows differential response in different rice variety in all morphological attributes. Satabdi (IET-4786) showed most promising response when compared with check variety , while CottondoraSannalu (MTU-1010) showed least response.These comparative resultsindicated thatSatabdi (IET-4786)seeds primed with petal extract of T. petula may exhibit drought tolerant potentiality in augmenting drought stress and therefore can be a convincing measure for boosting plant’s intrinsic drought tolerant potentiality at the time of early development.