Impact of nitrate salt hardened seeds and sowing dates on seedling stand, growth, yield attributes, nitrogen and stress metabolism of rice Bose Bandana1,*, Srivastava A.K.2, Siddique Anaytullah3 1Department of Plant Physiology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 221005, India 2National Seed Corporation Ltd., Samastipur, Bihar-848101, India 3Institute of Agricultural Sciences, RGSC, BHU, Varanasi, India *Corresponding Author: bbosebhu@gmail.com
Online published on 1 July, 2016. Abstract Impact of seed hardening (hydration followed by dehydration-a kind of seed priming) with water and nitrate salts were evaluated in the present piece of work in timely and late sown rice variety HUBR 2–1. Crops raised from distilled water(hydro)/Mg(NO3)2 and KNO3(osmo)hardened seeds showed an increment in fresh and dry weights, RWC(%), plant height, no of leaves, LA, LAI, CGR, RGR, NAR, effective tillers, nitrogen, proline and chlorophyll contents, nitrate reductase and super oxide dismutase activities in leaves over control set(representing non-hardened seeds). The hardening treatments resulted a reduction in membrane leakage, shortened the days from sowing to 50% flowering, increased days to plant maturity after sowing and flowering and improved the yield attributes. Best performance was resulted from Mg (NO3)2 hardened set and that was followed by KNO3 and distilled water hardened sets but control was always found inferior in timely and late sown crops. Highlights Top Keywords Seed hardening, nitrate salts, different sowing time, growth, nitrogen and stress metabolism. Top |