Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic stresses that adversely affect the seed germination, seedling growth, and crop production in arid and semi-arid regions. Maize is vulnerable to salinity both in the seedling and vegetative stages and they undergo difficulties during germination and the problem of salinity is further increased because of the use of poor-quality water for irrigation and poor drainage. The deleterious effects of salt stress on seed germination can be effectively moderated by seed priming. However few studies have been conducted to compared the effects of different types of seed priming include hydro-priming, halo and osmopriming, hormonal priming, bio-priming, matrix priming and thermos priming on maize germination and growth under salt stress. In the present study, we evaluated the physiological effects of seed priming with NaCl, KCl, and CaCl2.2H2O of various concentrations on maize under salt stress. The physiological characteristics like germination percentage, seedling vigor index, root length, shoot length, shoot to root ratio were reduced by salinity stress. Different priming treatments alleviated the impact of salt stress on maize to varying degrees. The type of priming agent and solution concentration had a significant impact on mitigation and seed priming with 100 and 200 mM.L-1 of CaCl2.2H2O were more effective and seed priming with 100 mM.L-1 of NaCl were least effective under salinity. Thus, seed priming with CaCl2.2H2O solution could be effective to improve the germination and growth of maize under saline stress conditions.

Maize, priming agents, seed priming, salinity and seed germination

Salinity inhibits the growth of maize seeds at their early stages. Priming is a practical way for farmers with salinity-stressed agricultural fields to meet their needs. CaCl2. 2H2O was found to be the most successful at imparting salt tolerance in maize at the early growth stages among the several chloride salts used for priming maize seeds. In this experiment, the better performance of the primed seeds on germination percentage, seedling vigor, shoot and root length shows the appraise of priming in saline soils. Additional advanced research is also required to investigate the effects of seed priming on physiological and biochemical attributes at different growth stages and yield of maize.

Sravanthi G., Ravi Babu M., Vijaya Kumar G., Anny Mrudhula K. and Ratna Kumari S. (2022). Effect of Seed Priming on Physiological characteristics of Maize under Imposed Salinity Stress. Biological Forum – An International Journal, 14(3): 1642-1646.