Enhancing germination and seedling vigour in cluster bean by organic priming

Abstract

The experiment was conducted at Department of Seed Science and Technology, Agricultural College and Research Institute, Madurai during 2014-2015, to find out the effect of organic seed priming with cow urine at different concentrations. The cluster bean seeds were soaked for 3 h with different concentrations viz., 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% along with water and control (no treatment). The seed quality parameters viz., speed of germination, germination, root length, shoot length, vigour index I, vigour index II and dry matter production were evaluated. The best performance was observed in cow urine (2%) by recording highest seed quality parameters. The percentage increase over control was 10.52, 8.16, 9.8, 8.0, 16.34, 15.36 and 7.8 for speed of germination, germination percentage, root length, shoot length, vigour index I, vigour index II and dry matter production, respectively.     Key words: Bovine urines, cluster bean, pre sowing seed treatment, vigour index-germination.