Germination and seedling emergence are the critical stages in the plant life cycle. Insufficient seedling emergence and inappropriate stand establishment are the main constraints in the production of crops which receiving less rainfall. Farmers do not have sufficient resources to meet the requirement of seedbed preparation for sowing and they are at more risk as compared to progressive farmers. On the other hand good establishment increases competitiveness against weeds, increases tolerance to drought period, increase yield and avoids the time consuming need for re-sowing that is costly too. It is well accepted fact that priming improves germination, reduces seedling emergence time and improves stand establishment. A method to improve the rate and uniformity of germination is the priming or physiological advancement of the seed lot. The general purpose of seed priming is to partially hydrate the seed to a point where germination processes are begun, but they would exhibit rapid germination when re-imbibed under normal or stress conditions. A lot of work has been done on seed priming and results of these studies indicate well the importance of priming to get a good crop stand in many crops of tropical region such as rice, maize, sorghum and pigeon pea.

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The experiment was conducted to find out the planting method and nitrogen level for enhancing the seed yield of fodder maize (Zea mays L.). The treatment comprised of three planting methods as zero tillage (ZT), conventional tillage (CT) and bed planting (BP) and four nitrogen levels (0, 100, 125 and 150 kg N/ha). Successive increase of 25kg N/ ha has significantly increased the seed and stover yield of maize with which significantly higher values of plant height, stover yield and shelling percentage was obtained.

An experiment was conducted at Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana during 2015 and 2016 to study the effect of priming, different seed rate on growth and seed yield of soybean planted under bed and flat method. The study was planned in factorial split plot design, keeping two planting techniques (flat sowing and bed sowing) and two seed priming treatments ( non primed seeds and 100 ppm GA3 primed seeds) in main plot and three seed levels ( 50, 62.5 and 75 kg ha-1) in sub plot. The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of seed priming on growth and productivity under different planting techniques with the use of varying seed rates. The results revealed that growth attributes viz. emergence count, plant height, dry matter accumulation, leaf area index and photosynthetic active radiation interception (%) was significantly higher under bed planting technique as compared to flat sowing method. The pooled seed yield was increased by 15.6 % in bed planted soybean crop as compared to flat planted crop. Soybean seeds primed with 100 ppm GA3 recorded significant results in all the growth parameters. Primed seed recorded increase in yield 15.3 % than non primed seeds. Seed rate of 62.5 kg ha-1 recorded significantly higher emergence count, plant height, dry matter accumulation, leaf area index and photosynthetic active radiation interception (%) which was statistically similar in results with 75 kg ha-1 seed rate in both the two years. Pooled seed yield of 62.5 kg ha-1seed rate was 4.61 % higher than 75 kg ha-1 and 12.6 % than 50 kg ha-1 seed rate.