COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF HYDRO AND HALOPRIMING ON SEED GERMINATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH OF IPIL IPIL (Leucaena leucocephala)

An experiment was conducted during the year 2020 to investigate the comparative effect of hydro and halopriming on seed germination and seedling growth of Ipil Ipil. The seeds of Ipil Ipil were primed in various solutions for 30 hours. The seeds were soaked in priming solutions viz. distilled water, luke warm water, NaCl solution @ 1% and 2%. The unprimed seeds were taken as control. The data was recorded for seed germination percentage, mean germination time (MGT), germination index (GI), seedling vigor index (SVI), fresh biomass of shoot, fresh biomass of roots, dry biomass of shoot, dry biomass of roots, quality index of the seedlings, sturdiness quotient and leakage of the electrolytes. The results revealed that all the observed parameters studied in the present study were significantly (P<0.05) influenced by various seed priming treatments. The results of seed priming depict that seed germination (90.00%), germination index (0.43), germination time (5.22 days) and seedling vigor index (1498.0) were observed better in response to the luke warm water. While the seeds primed with NaCl @ 1% had better results for fresh biomass of shoot (5.58 g), root (1.44 g), dry biomass of shoot (1.57 g) and root (0.29 g). Quality index of the seedlings and sturdiness quotient had better result from NaCl treatment. The quality of the seedlings was measured in terms of sturdiness quotient, quality index of the seedlings and leakage of the electrolytes. The sturdiness quotient (0.98), quality index of the seedling (24.85) was also better in response to the halo (NaCl) seed priming @ 1%. The only leakage of the electrolytes had no significant of seed priming. It is concluded from the present study that all seed germination related parameters are greatly affected by the lukewarm water treatment. However, parameters related with the seedling growth are affected by the NaCl treatment @ 1%.