Effect of exogenous silicic acid on germination and seedling establishment in Brinjal Dobaria JD*, Dhruv JJ, Parmar SR, Patel NJ Department of Biochemistry, B A College of Agriculture, Anand Agricultural University, Anand-388110, Gujarat, India *Author for correspondence: Email: jalpadobaria@aau.in
Online Published on 20 January, 2024. Abstract Brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) is an important and indigenous vegetable crop of India. It contributes 9% of the total vegetable production of the country. Seed germination and early seedling growth are critical stages for plant establishment and production. One of the major problems in the field of plant cultivation and production of this plant is low and uniform seed germination. Thus in this experiment, the influences of exogenous silicon (in form of silicic acid concentration) during germination and early seedling growth was evaluated. Treatments were 11 levels of silicic acid (0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 252, and 250 ppm H4SiO4) in 3 replicates. The results showed that different treatments of silicic acid had considerable effect on the germination time, germination percent, root length, root weight, shoot length and shoot weight, seedling height, vigour Index I and vigour Index II of brinjal. The highest germination percentage was obtained at 100 ppm silicic acid and the all growth characters were also increased. Result of this experiment is consistent with the hypothesis that silicic acid has a priming effect and can prepare a suitable metabolic reaction in seeds and improve seed germination performance and seedling establishment. Top Keywords Seed priming, Silicic acid, Germination characters. Top |