Effect of pre-sowing invigouration treatments on performance of ageing Dendrocalamus strictus seeds

Seed quality is one of the key factors affecting successful germination of seeds but this trait declines during prolonged storage. Maintenance of seed viability has been a matter of great concern to mankind during prolonged storage. Invigouration treatments that include Infusion, Fortification and Osmopriming with various bioactive chemicals, are known to improve the seed performance. Treated seeds were stored at controlled temperature and humidity (in desiccators at 4 °C). Infusion was done with GA3, IAA,IBA (conc. used was 10, 20 and 50 ppm each) and PEG-6000( conc. used was 2%, 5% and 10%). Fortification was done with Ascorbic acid and Potassium dihydrogen phosphate ( conc. used was 2%, 5% and 10%) and GA3. Statistically all the fortification and infusion materials were effective but GA3( 50 ppm) was most effective in maintaining germination percentage and vigour index of both fortified and infused seeds. Similarly, osmopriming was done with KCl, KNO3 and PEG-6000. Effective conc. of KCl for maintaining germination and vigour index for up to 18 months was found to be 10%. It was observed that the osmopriming with KCl (10%) resulted in maximum germination percentage of 83.1% and vigour index of 1272, 1282 and 1290 at 2%, 5% and 10% respectively which was more than the germination under control (80.2%) . It is concluded that seeds lose viability over a period of time even under controlled conditions and in order to regain seed viability before sowing , invigouration treatments offer promising results.