Growth and Yield of Rice Under Different Priming Media

Abstract

Improvement in the yield of rice is a pre-requisite to having selfsufficiency in rice production which has not yet been achieved with
pre-germination technology. This study was, therefore, conducted to
determine the efficacy of seed priming over pre-germination treatment
in improving rice yield. Seed priming with 100mM calcium chloride,
40% (w/v) polyethyl glycol 6000 (PEG6000) and 100ppm kinetin were
tested against pre-germination. The experimental design used was
randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications.
The plants were assessed using leaf area index (LAI), absolute growth
rate (AGR), relative growth rate (RGR), crop growth rate (CGR), net
assimilation rate (NAR), leaf area duration (LAD), plant height,
number of tillers, productive tillers, rate of photosynthesis, stomatal
conductance, intercellular carbon dioxide, transpiration rate,
spikelets per panicle, number of filled spikelets, 100-grain weight,
grain yield, harvest index and days to heading. It was found that
kinetin priming was 18.24%, 10.32% and 28.31% better in number of
spikelets per panicle, grain yield and harvest index respectively than
pre-germination that was used as the check. This finding implies that
100ppm kinetin priming could be effectively used for better yield
improvement of MR219 rice under optimum conditions and can
successfully replace pre-germination with better yield.