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A study was carried out to examine the performance of blackgram seedlings under varying levels of salinity and to ascertain the remedial effect of lipo chitooligosaccharide (LCO) against salinity stress. Higher germination percentage, root and shoot length, vigour index and salt tolerance index and lower phytotoxicity of roots and shoots (0) were observed in control (no salinity) treatment irrespective of priming. Salinity negatively influenced the seedling growth and as the salinity increased the seedling growth characters were drastically reduced. The nod factor treated blackgram seedlings had relatively higher germination percentage , root and shoot length, vigour index and salt tolerance index and lower phytotoxicity of roots and shoots. Seed priming with nod factor was found to have significant effect on eliminating the effects of salinity.Key words: Lipo chitooligosaccharide, Nod factors, Phytotoxicity, Priming, Salt tolerance index, Salinity.Agricultural productivity is adversely affected by salinity in many arid and semi-arid regions. Globally, 800 million hectares is adversely affected by salinity especially in the areas of irrigated agriculture (FAO, 2012). It causes reduction in the cultivated land size every year and in India 8.1 million hectares of land is salt affected.Salinity reduces the yield of pulses by more than 50 per cent (Bray et al., 2000). Major obstacles to the growth and productivity of widely cultivated greengram, blackgram and cowpea in arid and semiarid regions are the everincreasing salinity and sodicity of soils and the scarcity of good quality irrigation water (Alqurainy, 2007).Seed germination is very sensitive to salinity. Salinity hinders the seedling establishment by accelerating the osmotic potential. Seeds may be more sensitive to stresses than mature plants because of exposure to the dynamic environment close to the soil surface. Dash and Panda (2001) reported decrease in germination percentage, root length, shoot length and fresh mass with an increase in NaCl concentration and at 3 per cent NaCl concentration there was no emergence of root. Udhaya Nandhini et al. (2015) reported that, salt stress decreased germination percentage and reduced seedling growth in maize.Attempts have been made to alleviate the negative effects of salt stress during germination through priming with lipo-chitooligosaccharides (nod factors). Rhizobial bacteria from the family Rhizobiaceae (i.e., rhizobia) affect fundamental processes in plants by producing signal molecules, lipo-chitooligosaccharides (LCOs), during nitrogen fixing symbiosis. These compounds, known as nodulation factors (nod factors), are complex, with activity at concentrations as low as picomolar (Spaink, 1994).It has been shown that LCOs can stimulate several physiological responses in non-host plants including cell division (Egertsdotter and Von Arnod, 1998). Application of nod factors to seeds of legumes and non-legumes stimulates germination, seedling emergence, plant growth and yield in crop and horticultural plan...

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Field experiments were conducted at TNAU, Coimbatore during 2019 and 2020 for developing organic nutrient package for finger millet (Ragi) using the variety CO (Ra) 15. Treatments included twelve combinations of weed compost, enriched vermicompost, enriched farmyard manure (EFYM) as soil application along with panchagavya, effective microbes (EM), vermiwash, egg amino acid as foliar spray. The experiment was laid out in RBD with three replications. The results showed that application of enriched vermicompost @ 1t ha -1 applied in two equal splits on 25 and 40 DAT along with foliar application of egg amino acid @ 5% on 30 and 45 DAT was found to be the best nutrient management package for organic finger millet based on the grain yield (2746 kg ha -1 ). However the maximum net return (Rs. 31,477) and BCR of 1.94 was recorded under basal application of EFYM @ 750 kg ha -1 along with foliar spraying of EM @ 5% on 30 and 45 DAT thus proving as an economically viable nutrient package for organic finger millet production.