Seed Vigour Studies in Relation to Position of Pod in Pea

An experiment was conducted on pea (Pisum sativum L.) cv. VL-1 to evaluate the effect of position of pod on the plant on seed vigour under controlled conditions during rabi season of 2004-05. Hundred plants were selected randomly in four replications and divided into three equal parts, i.e. upper, middle and lower at the time of harvesting. Pods were picked and threshed by hand, dried in sun and kept in plastic jars. The seeds harvested and threshed from rest of the plants without partitioning formed the control treatment. The method employed for vigour measurements consisted 1000 seed weight, first count, standard germination, seedling length, seedling fresh weight, seedling dry weight, vigour index I ^st and II ^nd, electrical conductivity of seed leachate, leachate absorbance at 480 nm, topographic tetrazolium test and quantitative T_z. All the four treatments of pea under study were significantly different from each other with respect to most of the vigour tests employed, except 1000-seed weight and topographic T_z test, while no significant differences were observed in the result of control and seeds received from middle portion with respect to their seed vigour. The seeds from upper portion exhibited excellent performance while those from middle portion and control treatment showed moderate performance. Seed from lower portion exhibited significantly poor performance in majority of the tests.