Seed Germination and Initial Growth of Pepper Seedlings is Influenced by Environment Temperature and Priming Method

Abstract

The effects of different environment temperatures, priming treatments and priming durations on germination parameters and early growth of pepper seedlings were investigated. Seeds were hydro primed in distilled water, or osmo primed in two different water potentials (-0.15 and -0.5 MPa) of polyethylene glycol (PEG) 8000. Both, hydro primed and osmo primed seeds were subject of two different imbibitions periods, 48 and 72 hrs. In addition to primed seeds, an equal sample of non primed seeds was included in the experiment as a control variant. Following priming, the seeds were subjected to germination tests at two different environment temperatures, respectively 18 ⁰C and 24 ⁰C. In general, there was no significant effect of hydro priming on germination parameters or early growth of pepper seedlings. On the contrary, significantly higher germination percentage and germination speed and significantly shorter mean germination time than the non primed seeds were obtained due to seed osmo priming by PEG. Similarly, an enhanced seedling growth, especially under suboptimum temperature conditions was evidenced in PEG primed seedlings. Apart from germination speed, the increase of PEG concentration from -0.15 to -0.5 MPa had no effect to germination parameters of pepper seeds. The extent of the imbibitions period over 48 hrs did also have no benefits on germination parameters.