Priming Treatments for Improvement of Seed Quality in Cluster Bean

Cluster bean (guar) is an important arid legume crop of the country. Nowadays, it is gaining importance as an industrial crop due to the presence of galactomannan content in the seed. The crop generally faces moisture stress conditions at the sowing time, seedling emergence and plant growth. If primed seed sown in the field, then it can tolerate the problem of moisture stress to some extent particularly during the initial stages of germination and plant growth and it helps in optimum plant stand establishment. Improved seed germination and vigour potential contribute to better crop establishment and seed yield. The results of present study revealed that among various priming treatments, the treatments T1(H-D), T6 (KNO3, 0.5%) and T8(Pseudomonas culture) enhanced the standard germination (6.66-12.66%) in good quality seed-lots (L1) of variety HG-365, whereas, the treatments T3 (GA3, 50ppm), T5 ( PEG-6000) and T7 (Rhizobium culture) improved the germination percentage ( 6.67-11.00%) in good quality seed-lot of variety HG-563. Moreover, none of the treatments enhanced the germination effectively over control in marginal seed-lots of both the varieties.