Alireza Bagheri; Farzad Mondani; Azadeh Geravandi; Sahar Amiri
Abstract
Seed priming is one of the most effective methods for improving germination and seedling establishment. In order to study the effect of priming on germination of different shapes of Marigold compact petal variety (Calendula officinalis L.), a factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized ...
Read More
Seed priming is one of the most effective methods for improving germination and seedling establishment. In order to study the effect of priming on germination of different shapes of Marigold compact petal variety (Calendula officinalis L.), a factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications in 2014. The germination traits were calculated for different shapes of Marigold seedlings such as germination percentage, germination rate, seedling index, root length and shoot length. The results showed that crescent-shaped seeds exhibited the highest percentage, rate and germination index with 75.51%, 4.48 germination per day and 18.97%, respectively. In addition, the effect of osmo and hydro priming on seeds showed that the highest germination percentage (75.56%) was observed in zero bar of osmo priming and hydro priming of 8 hours. The highest germination rate in the hydro priming treatments was 8 and 16 hours, with values of 3.16 and 3.26 germination per day, respectively. The highest germination index of hydro priming treatments was recorded at 8 and 16 hours with values of 12.22 and 11.75, respectively. Priming action can be effective in reducing the negative effects of various factors during germination and afterwards. Overall, the results of this experiment showed that the use of osmo and hydro priming for the crescent-shaped seeds of Mrigold had the highest germination traits.
