Effects of hydro-priming treatments on seedling growth performance attributes of Corchorus olitorius genotypes

Abstract

Hydro-priming treatment is the cheapest and commonest method for enhancing emergence and seedling growth performance of  Corchorus plant. Establishing suitability of any treatment for each genotype is necessary to ensure optimum field performance. Based on  a completely randomized design and using a screen-house set-up, the effect of two types of hydro-priming treatments (hot water at  100°C for 10 s and soaking in ordinary water for 2-10 h) was evaluated on the number of days to 50% seedling emergence, seedling  height and number of leaves/plant of 14 genotypes of Corchorus olitorius seeds. The effects of genotype and treatment were significant  (p<0.05) on the dependent variables. Longer water soaking time significantly (p<0.01) reduced days to 50% emergence (r² =0.5258), but  increased seedling height (r² =0.2385) and number of leaves per plant (r² =0.5989). Ordinary water soaking for 10 h was similar to hot  water (100^◦C) soaking in days to 50% emergence for all the genotypes. Genotypes NG/09/002, NGB/01/288 and NG/11/007 had  significantly higher seedling height when treated with hot water than ordinary water soaking. Contrarily, NG/09/010, NG/11/007,  NG/11/006 and Eletieku yielded higher number of leaves/plant in ordinary water for 10 h than the hot water soaking treatment. The  findings suggest that appropriate hydro-priming treatment should be given to specific Corchorus genotype for optimum performance.