Germination and seedling growth of Sesbania species as influenced by seed size

A Sagar,Akmg Sarwar,Am Mridul,Sc Chanda

doi:10.3329/pa.v28i4.36371

Abstract

An experiment was carried out at Plant Systematics Laboratory of the Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh to find out the effect of seed size on germination and seedling growth of three Sesbania species. Seed size was graded as small (3.1–3.5 mm), medium (3.6–4.0 mm) and large (4.1–4.5 mm); and three Sesbania species viz. S. bispinosa, S. cannabina and S. sesban, were used as experimental materials. The treatments were arranged in factorial experiment laid in completely randomized design having four replications. Though the effect of seed size on germination and seedling growth parameters followed similar trend, significant differences were observed among these three Sesbania species. Medium-sized seed produced the highest percentage of emergence and germination, and large-sized seed produced the highest seedling length, vigour index, and total biomass; although the numerical values did not differ statistically. The small-sized seeds were poor performer in all aspect of germination and seedling growth descriptors. The correlation matrix analyses showed that seed size, both length and/or width, highly correlated with root and seedling length, base diameter, vigour index and biomass yield of Sesbania spp. The medium to large-sized seed sown at relatively higher seed rate could be helpful for higher biomass yield of Sesbania spp. especially at the early growth stages.Progressive Agriculture 28 (4): 316-322, 2017

Highlights

Quality seeds ensure a successful crop production and the crop yield may be increased up to 15-20% (Ambika et al, 2014)
Among the Sesbania species, both the emergence and germination percentage of S. sesban seeds were comparatively lower than two other species (Table 1)
The large and medium-sized seeds of Sesbania species produced statistically identical in seedling length (SL) and Vigour index (VI)

Summary

Introduction

Quality seeds ensure a successful crop production and the crop yield may be increased up to 15-20% (Ambika et al, 2014). Seed size is one of the most important seed quality traits, which affects the performance of crop production (Adebisi et al, 2013). It is a widely accepted measure of seed quality and different seed size affects seedling emergence, germination and other agronomical aspects (Kaydan and Yagmur, 2008). Seed size has been considered an important evolutionary trait that affects the reproductive outcome of many plant species (Cordazzo, 2002). Seed size produced by plants varies between and within plant species, sometimes by several orders of magnitude (Leishman et al, 1995; Silvertown and Bullock, 2003; Moles and Westboy, 2006)

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Conclusion