Effect of seed priming on growth, flowering and cut flower quality of carnation

Abstract

Carnation is one of the most important commercially grown flowers in the world. It has wide variations in shape and colours as well as good keeping quality. The present experiment was conducted to study the effects of seed priming through various chemicals such as salicylic acid, glycine betaine, potassium nitrate, ascorbic acid and hydropriming on growth and floral quality attributes of carnation. The seeds were pre-treated with different priming agents (salicylic acid 100 mg/L, glycine betaine 1536 mg/L, potassium nitrate 10 g/L, ascorbic acid 50 mg/L, and water) for 24 hours and then sown in clay pots. Seeds without treatment were served as control. Sowing was done on 21-10-2014 during year 1 and on 20-10-15 during year 2. Seeds were sown in pots and after two months of sowing, seedlings were transplanted into clay pots till flowering. Hydropriming (water treatment) resulted in the maximum seed germination (43.04%) and took minimum days to initiate first flower bud (87 days). Salicylic acid treated seeds resulted in the plants with delayed flower bud initiation and had maximum flower stalk length (3.08 cm), root length (21.89 cm), fresh weight of foliage (54.35 g), dry weight of foliage (16.66 g), fresh weight of roots (3.97 g), dry weight of roots (1.64 g), total biomass per plant (52.84 g), and longer length of growth cycle (177.5 days). Potassium nitrate treatment showed the maximum fresh weight per flower (4.24 g), dry weight per flower (0.95 g) and flower stalk diameter (10.44 mm). The minimum fresh and dry weights per flower were recorded (2.750, 68 g resp ectively) in unprimed seeds.