PRIMING COMPARISON OF CORTICATED AND DECORTICATED MANGO SEEDS FOR PRODUCTIVE SEEDLING ROOTSTOCKS

Abstract

The non-availability of productive seedling rootstocks in nurseries and its dissemination within the area has been one of main constraints for collapse of the mango industry. In this regard container based experiment was conducted in 2015-2016. The seeds of mango fruits were obtained and divided into two lots i.e. corticated and decorticated followed by seed priming. The distilled water for hydropriming, gibberellic acid (GA3) for hormonal and solo plant (NPK fertilizer) for nutripriming was used for seed priming. The unprimed seeds were treated ascontrol. The soil had EC of (0.38 dSm-1), pH (7.46), organic matter (0.89%), nitrogen (0.053 mg kg-1), phosphorus (5.61 mg Kg-1), potassium (209 mg Kg-1), calcium (2713 mg Kg-1) and magnesium (1243 mg Kg-1). The data reveals that maximum mean seed germination (77.42%) was observed in 18.50 days in response to the hormonal primed seeds. Further hormonal primed seeds produced better results for germination index (11.65%), seedling vigor index (833.1), seedling height (33.82 cm) and stem diameter (9.66 mm) and chlorophyll content(48.18 rg)while leaf nitrogen (1.16%), phosphorus (0.14%), potassium (0.61%), calcium (1.89%) and magnesium (0.27%) content was observed maximum in response to the nutripriming. To compare corticated and decorticated seeds, decorticated seeds produced better results for seed germination (76.81%), germination index (11.97), seedling vigor index (3462.9), nitrogen(1.11%), phosphorus (0.14%), potassium (0.58%), calcium (1.81%) and magnesium(0.26%). It is concluded that decorticated seeds when primed with GA3 produced better results for germination and seedling growth while nutrient content was well above or close the critical limits in nutriprimed seeds. This study suggests that the primingof the decorticated mango seeds is suitable to produce productive seedling rootstocks.