Amelioration of Salinity Stress in Maize Seed Germination and Seedling Growth Attributes through Seed Priming

Abstract

Germination of seeds and growth of seedling respond to seed priming as priming can guard the damage of salinity stress. A study conducted in the net house of the Department of Agronomy, BAU, Mymensingh during the period from November 2012 to April 2013 investigated the ameliorative effect of seed priming on seed germination and seedling attributes of maize under various salinity stress conditions. The experiment consisted of five seed priming and four salinity levels (NaCl) and laid out in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. Seed germination and seedling attributes of maize varied due to salinity stress and priming. The highest seed germination (95.7%) was recorded when no stress was imposed under hydropriming (48 hours). The germination of seeds performed even well (92.3%) when treated with hydropriming (48 hours) and NaCl@0.25 dS•m −1 which was followed by hydropriming (24 hours) under no salinity imposed and NaCl@0.25 dS•m −1 salinity. Hydropriming for 48 hours without salt stress performed the best on number of leaves seedling −1 (8), shoot length (28.2 cm), root length (14.5 cm), fresh weight (100.8 g) and dry weight of seedling (50.3 g). The germination and seedling growth parameters were reduced with the increase in salinity levels irrespective of priming while all seed priming treatments showed ameliorative effects. However, reduction in seed germination and seedling attributes were minimal with hydropriming for 48 hours. The results revealed that priming of maize seeds could be used for amelioration of salinity stress and hydropriming for 48 hours appeared as the best seed priming treatment.

Enhancing Germination and Seedling Growth in Salt Stressed Maize Lines through Chemical Priming

“…The commencement and rate of germination is delayed by salt stress during germination, which was the reason the control was found to record the highest germination speed compared to other primers (Farooq et al, 2015). The speed of germination as affected by primer and salinity levels aligned with the work of (Akter et al, 2018), who studied the effect of priming and salinity levels on maize using 5 seed priming and 4 salinity levels and observed that there was significant different in seed germination percentage due to seed priming treatments and various salinity stress levels. The effect of priming and salinity stress on germination was observed to be due to the prevention of water entry into the seed as a result of the decrease in the osmotic potential in the soil solution (El Sabagh et al, 2021).…”

Salinity Stress in Maize: Effects of Stress and Recent Developments of Tolerance for Improvement

“…Seed priming techniques utilize different osmotic solutions as seed priming agents including inorganic salts, sugars, growth regulators and polyethylene glycol [111]. Broadly, there are two seed priming techniques, known as uncontrolled hydration or hydro-priming [112], and controlled hydration, which includes methods such as osmotic priming, solid matrix priming, and hormonal priming [113]. Among others, polyethylene glycol (PEG), chlorides, sulphates, nitrates, glycerol, sorbitol have also been commonly used as osmotic priming agents having germination enhancing effect for different cereals including maize [23].…”

Effects of priming on germination and biochemical attributes of three maize lines under saline condition

“…Maize is regarded to be one of the cereals that is most salt-sensitive (Maas and Hoffman, 1977;Sabagh et al, 2021). Salinity is especially harmful to maize during germination and at the seedling growth stage (Akter et al, 2018). Like other abiotic stresses, salt stress in maize also leads to oxidative stress by the enhanced production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) (Shah et al, 2021).…”