Seed Germination and Initial Growth of Pepper Seedlings is Influenced by Environment Temperature and Priming Method

Glenda Sallaku,Astrit Balliu,Gjok Vuksani

doi:10.5296/jas.v8i4.17831

Abstract

The effects of different environment temperatures, priming treatments and priming durations on germination parameters and early growth of pepper seedlings were investigated. Seeds were hydro primed in distilled water, or osmo primed in two different water potentials (-0.15 and -0.5 MPa) of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 8000. Both, hydro primed and osmo primed seeds were subject of two different imbibitions periods, 48 and 72 hrs. In addition to primed seeds, an equal sample of non primed seeds was included in the experiment as a control variant. Following priming, the seeds were subjected to germination tests at two different environment temperatures, respectively 18 0C and 24 0C. In general, there was no significant effect of hydro priming on germination parameters or early growth of pepper seedlings. On the contrary, significantly higher germination percentage and germination speed and significantly shorter mean germination time than the non primed seeds were obtained due to seed osmo priming by PEG. Similarly, an enhanced seedling growth, especially under suboptimum temperature conditions was evidenced in PEG primed seedlings. Apart from germination speed, the increase of PEG concentration from -0.15 to -0.5 MPa had no effect to germination parameters of pepper seeds. The extent of the imbibitions period over 48 hrs did also have no benefits on germination parameters.

Highlights

Among various types of biotic and abiotic stresses, salinity, drought, and temperature cause low growth and development, by inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in a plant cell
The above ground biomass of pepper seedlings was doubled and the entire dry matter of entire plant (DMplant) was increased by 71%
The most significant result of different responses roots and shoots had to the change in environment temperature was the highly significant change of the ratio between dry matter of roots (DMroot) and dry matter of shoots (DMshoot) decreased by 36%

Summary

Introduction

Among various types of biotic and abiotic stresses, salinity, drought, and temperature cause low growth and development, by inducing reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in a plant cell. I.e., the physiological process of controlled seed hydration, is considered a useful technique to improve germination of many crop species, under adverse conditions such as low temperature (Elkoca et al, 2007). In addition it enhances seed germination uniformity, and seedling growth and development in both normal and stress conditions (Waqas et al, 2019), alleviate the toxic effects of heavy metals stress (Salah et al, 2015), and improves salt (Balliu et al, 2016) and chilling tolerance (Salah et al, 2015)

Methods

Results

Conclusion