Department of Plant Physiology, Chandra Sekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur - 208 002, India.
Present address of all authors: Institute of Agriculture Sciences, BHU, Varanasi - 221 005, India.
Seeds of (Oryza sativa L.) cultivars CSAR-13, CSAR-27, CSAR-77, CSAR-148-205, CSAR-253, CSAR-256, Pant-12, Basmati-370, IET-11120 and IR-539-30-2-2-3-3 were subjected to water stress in terms of various external water potential during seed germination and seedling growth under osmoticum solution of PEG-6000. The cumulative germination and seedling growth decreased significantly with increasing intensity of stress irrespective of cultivar tested. However, CSAR-13, CSAR-77 and CSAR-27 showed higher tolerance to decreasing water potential with respect to germination, while IET-11120 and IR-539-30-2-2-3-3 proved better for seedling growth under moisture stress condition.
