Department of Sustainable Organic Agriculture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641003, Tamil Nadu, India
1Department of Agronomy, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore-641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Worldwide salinity is the foremost soil environmental factor adversely affecting the seed germination, plant growth and yield. Recent studies show that lipo-chitooligosaccharides (LCO-nod factors) is a unique molecule which is responsible for abiotic stress tolerance. Hence a laboratory experiment was taken up with a sole objective of seed priming with LCO (4 ml/kg) on maize seedling growth which were exposed to different levels of salinity (0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 dS/m) and was laid out in a factorial completely randomized design with four replications. As a result of salinity stress the seedling characters of maize were negatively influenced. However nod factor treated maize seeds had relatively higher germination percentage, germination stress tolerance index and mean daily germination and were found to have decreased phytotoxicity to roots and shoots. Thus seed priming with nod factor (4 ml/kg) improved the tolerance to salinity at seedling stage of maize by inducing physiological changes in seeds.
Salinity, lipo-chitooligosaccharides, germination percentage, germination stress, tolerance index, mean daily germination
