Vol. 10, Issue 9 (2021)

Author(s):
H Parashurama, K Parimala and B Pushpavathi

Abstract:
The experiment was conducted to assess the effect of seed treatment with polymers, fungicide and biocontrol agents on seed quality parameters of groundnut during storage. The analysis of variance revealed that treatments differed significantly for the parameters studied at different storage periods. At the end of four months of storage higher germination was observed in seeds treated with polymer-1 + tebuconazole + Trichoderma harzianum (65.00%) followed by polymer-2 + tebuconazole + Trichoderma harzianum (61.67%) and least germination percentage was noticed in untreated seed (53.00%). Seedling traits declined with a mean reduction of 47.47% and 42.01% for root and shoot length respectively at four months of storage. The treatments polymer-1 + tebuconazole + Trichoderma harzianum and polymer-2 + tebuconazole + Trichoderma harzianum were found to be superior for seedling vigour index-I, seedling dry weight, seedling vigour index-II, speed of germination and field emergence across the storage periods tested compared to other treatments. The study also indicated that these treatments showed minimum per cent seed rot (15.33%) and per cent seed infection (14.0%) compared to other treatments. The study indicated that, the polymer based chemical and biocontrol seed treatments were found to be promising for enhancing the seed quality traits.