The Effects of Osmopriming to Improve Germination
of Deteriorated Seed of Hulled and Hull-Less Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.)

Mansour Taghvaei¹. M. R. Chaichi², M. R. Tavakolafshari³, F. Sharifzadeh⁴, A. Ahmadi⁵ and R. Ghanadha⁶

¹ Department of Desert Region Management, College of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
e-mail: taghvaei@shirazu.ac.ir

^{2, 3, 4, 5 & 6,} Department of Agronomy, College of Agriculture, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
 

Abstract

Seed quality is affected by environmental conditions during seed development and maturation. Drought stress and high temperature during part or all of this period may reduce quality of harvested seed. Priming of seed in osmotic solutions has been used to improve the rate and uniformity of germination. This experiment was conducted in completely randomized design with three replications at laboratory conditions to investigate the effects of Osmopriming treatments on germination of deteriorated hulled and hull less barely cultivars. The treatments were two barley cultivars seed lots deteriorated by drought stress during seed development and seven levels of polyethylene glycol PEG (6000) potentials including control, -10 bars for 1 day, -10 bars for 2 days, -10 bars for 3 days, -12 bars for 1 day, -12 bars for 2 days and -12 bars for 3 days. Seeds were primed in aerated solution at equivalent potentials of polyethylene glycol PEG (6000) in dark room at 10°C. Osmopriming significantly improved germination rate, mean germination time and coefficient of velocity of germination at cool temperature (10°C). Priming with of PEG solutions at -10 Bar for 3 days for hulled and hull-less cultivars had the maximum enhancing effect on seed germination characteristics.

Keywords:
Barley (Hordeum Vulgare L.), coefficient of velocity, germination rate, mean germination time, Osmopriming, PEG