EFFECT of HORMONAL PRIMING ON GERMINATION and SEEDLING VIGOUR of TOMATO (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) C.V. Nagina, Pakit

The present study was conducted to investigate the impact of the priming of seed with plant growth regulators commonly known as hormonal priming on the germination and seedling vigour of Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) cultivars Nagina and pakit. Tomato is herbaceous annual plant in which dormancy has been reported in freshly harvested seeds. Now a days, different methods are used to break the dormancy of seed including harmonal priming.  Tomato seeds were primed with aerated solutions of Salicylic acid (SA) and Gibberelic acid (GA3) at the concentrations of 10, 50 and 100 ppm each for 24h at 25 ± 2°C respectively. All the priming treatments resulted in vigour enhancement as compared to the control (unprimed) and both of the cultivars behaved alike with minor differences. All of the parameters such as final germination percentage, germination index, mean germination time, vigour index, germination speed, T50, root and shoot length, total seedling length, fresh and dry weight of seedlings were found to be significant (P<0.05) for application of salicylic acid (SA) as priming agent. Priming with 10 ppm SA produced maximum FGP (88.50%) while minimum (59%) was observed in non-primed seeds. Similarly, MGT was also reduced when seeds were primed with SA and showed highly significant (P<0.05) results. Seed priming with 10 ppm salicylic acid proved to be the best in all the treatments.