Effect of Seed Priming on Germination, Growth and Flowering of Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus L.)

Seed priming is a treatment to improve seed quality and plant growth upon germination and is applied widely to crop species to improve uniformity and yield. The present study aimed to establish priming protocol for Antirrhinum majus L. in the mid-hill conditions of Himachal Pradesh to improve germination of seeds, seedling development and to see their effect on growth and flowering. Snapdragon selections i.e. UHFSA-9 and UHFSA-13 were treated with 10 different seed priming treatments like hormonal priming with GA 3 , chemical priming with KNO 3 and KH 2 PO 4 and bio-priming with Trichoderma harzianum and Bacillus subtilis during 2010 and 2011. Findings revealed that seed priming with T. harzianum (1 × 10 5 cfu/ml) improved the germination percentage from 51.75 to 73.42 %, increased the number of leaves (8.75), shoot length (6.15 cm) and root length (2.70 cm) as compared to all pre-sowing seed treatments including control in both the selections. On other side bio-priming with T. harzianum also decreased the time to 50 % germination (10.69 days). The findings also revealed that when the seedlings were transplanted in naturally ventilated polyhouse conditions, the effect of priming can be seen on growth, flowering and seed attributes in both the selections of A. majus . Plant height (75.94 cm), plant spread (41.54 cm), number of spikes (12.02), total number of florets per spike (21.60) and flowering duration (45.88 days) was increased in bio-primed plants with T. harzianum @ 1 × 10 5 cfu/ml as compare to non-primed plants. Additionally it also decreased the days taken to flowering (116.71 days). We conclude that different priming treatments increased the germination, growth, flowering and seed attributes of Antirrhinum selections but the bio-priming with T. harzianum has shown good results among them all.