Efficacy of seed treatment on storability of cotton seeds and seedling vigour

Abstract

Seedling vigour evaluated in terms of field emergence of fresh as well as halogen treated, two month stored cotton seeds from 18 genotypes revealed the existence of variability. The seedling growth improvement due to halogen treatment after two months of storage differed with genotype to the tune of 1.0% (HB224) to 15.0% (M12) with an average of 7.0% over control. Halogen treatment had also improved the root length, shoot length and dry matter production of seedlings emerged in the field. The storability of halogen treated and untreated seeds of cotton genotypes assessed through a rapid deteriorative process (accelerated ageing) revealed the positive effect of seed treatment in prolonging shelf life. The response of individual genotypes for halogen treatment varied widely but the over all gain due to treatment over control was 12.0%, 5.5%, 3.8%, 12.8%, 32.5% and 23.7% for standard germination, root length, shoot length, dry matter production, vigour index and eleptrical conductivity of seed leachate, respectively. The seed quality parameters did not show uniformity to categorize the genotype as good, medium and poor.