TITLE:
Seed Priming and Tolerance to Salt and Water Stress in Divergent Grain Sorghum Genotypes
AUTHORS:
Charles Lobo Pinheiro, Hellen Thayse Nascimento Araújo, Selma Freire de Brito, Marcos da Silva Maia, Jesimiel da Silva Viana, Sebastião Medeiros Filho
KEYWORDS:
Hydropriming, Hormonal Priming, Gibberellic Acid, Sorghum bicolor
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.9 No.4,
March
9,
2018
ABSTRACT: Tolerance to water and salt stress during
germination and growth of agricultural species might have superior results when
seeds are submitted to priming processes. The objective of the present study
was to evaluate the use of hydropriming and hormonal priming with gibberellic
acid (GA3) on the tolerance of divergent genotypes of sorghum to
salt and water stress during germination and seedling growth. The genotypes
analyzed were cultivar BRS 330 and lineage 201420, which are the most and least
tolerant to water and salt stress, respectively. Sowing was undertaken under
control (no stress), water stress (-0.6 MPa),
and salt stress (20 dS·m-1) conditions, and the seeds
were subjected to the following treatments: control-no immersion; hydropriming-immersion
for 2 hours in distilled water; and hormonal priming-immersion in GA3 solutions, at concentrations of 50, 75, and 100 ppm, for 2 hours. After
soaking, the seeds were dried for 24 hours at a temperature of 30°C ± 2°C. The variables analyzed were percentage and
germination speed index, root and shoot lengths, and root/shoot ratio. The stress
conditions analyzed negatively affected the two genotypes; however, the seeds
that underwent priming processes improved the performance of the genotypes
under salt and water stress conditions, especially when using seeds of the more
tolerant genotype (BRS 330) subjected to hormonal priming at 100 ppm GA3 concentration.