Influence of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench. seeds treatment with biological preparations on its sowing qualities

Abstract

The article presents the results of studies on the effect of sorghum bicolor seeds (Sorghum bicolor (L.)) Moench treatment with a mixture of the mycorrhizal biopreparation «Mycofriend» and the biologically active adsorbent «BM-nanobiochar» on germination energy and laboratory seed germination. The optimal doses of biological preparations «Mikofrend» and «BM-nanobiochar», which ensure the maximum sowing quality of seeds, have been established. The aim of the study is to establish the optimal dose of biochar and mycorrhizal biopreparation, which ensures the highest sowing quality of sorghum bicolor seeds. The subject of the research is sowing qualities of sorghum bicolor seeds, mycorrhizal biopreparation and biochar. The research methods were biological (conducting a laboratory experiment) and statistical (descriptive statistics, dispersion, correlation and regression analyses) ones. The research results showed that the use of «Micofrend» for the treatment of sorghum bicolor seeds at a dose of 3–6 g/kg increases the energy of seed germination to 88.63–88.00 % (control – 84.81 %) and laboratory germination to 90.69 % (control – 86.69 %). The use of biological preparation «BM-nanobiochar» at a dose of 3–6 g/kg provided an increased energy of seed germination to 88.75–87.81 % (control – 86.31 %) and laboratory germination to 90.44–90.63 % (control – 88.94 %). Increasing the dose of both tested biological preparations to 9 g/kg led to a deterioration of the sowing qualities of the seeds. In the experiment the highest germination energy (92.25 %) and laboratory germination (93.5 %) was observed when treating sorghum bicolor seeds with a mixture of «Micofrend» and «BM-nanobiochar» at a dose of 6 and 3 g/kg respectively. The lowest rate of germination energy (81.75 %) was observed in the control variant without seed treatment with biological preparations. A close curvilinear relationship (R2 =0.81–0.98) was established between the sowing qualities of sorghum bicolor seeds and the doses of biological preparations «Mycofriend» and «BM-nanobiochar». The presence of a close multiple correlation between the sowing quality of the seed and its treatment with biological preparations «Micofrend» and «BM-nanobiochar» (R=0.867) was proved. Key words: germination energy, laboratory germination, mycorrhizal preparation, biochar, sustainable development, climate agreement, green European course, bioenergy.