Trends in Biosciences

Fresh seed lots of garden pea (Pisum sativum) cv. Pusa Pragati subjected to artificial ageing were used to obtain three lots of high, medium, and low vigour. The lots of high, medium and low vigour soobtained were subjected to seed treatments viz. control, hydropriming, halopriming (50 mM KNO₃), halopriming (50 mM CaCl₂), Ethanol (0.5%) priming. The high vigour lots after hydropriming showed highest germination (96%) and the low vigour lots under control condition showed significantly lowest germination (68%). The number of pods of low vigour lots after treating with 50 mM KNO₃ was highest (21.0) and the high vigour lots showed lowest number of pods (9) under controlled condition. Highest seed yield was found in the high vigour lots (15.79 q/ha) after hydropriming and the lowest seed yield (10.17 q/ha) was found in low vigour lots under controlled condition. The results suggest that hydropriming and 50mM KNO₃ priming can be successfully used to improve seedling emergence and improving other morphological characters of pea plant.