Effect of seed osmopriming on germination and

Abstract

Seed priming (osmopriming) consists of imbibing seeds in an osmotic solution that allows pregerminative metabolism to proceed, but prevents radicle emergence. This treatment can increase rate, percentage and uniformity of germination or seedling emergence. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of seed priming on germination and seedling development of fennel. The experiment was conducted in Petri-dishes using a factorial arrangement based on completely randomized design with three replications. Seeds of fennel were osmotically primed in -1, -1.5 and -2 MPa NaCl, KCl, KNO3 and polyethylene glycol 6000 for 24, 48 and 72 hours at 20○C. Priming with all of the osmoticums increased germination percentage significantly. Seeds primed with NaCl had 97% higher germination percentage than non-primed control seeds. Also, primed seeds with NaCl, KCl and PEG resulted in higher germination rate, greater seedling fresh weights and longer seedling root and shoot lengths than was the case for non-primed seeds. In this study increasing the duration of seed priming had negative effect on measured characteristics. Priming with NaCl and KCl had better results than other treatments. In this case, evaluation of the effect of seed priming on emergence and growth of fennel in farm condition is necessary.