IMPROVEMENT OF EMERGENCE BY OSMOTIC SEED TREATMENTS IN SOIL OF HIGH SALINITY

Osmotic seed treatments promote seed emergence in earliness and sometimes the percentage of seedlings increases too.
The present experiments were started to determine if these treatments also improve emergence under conditions of soil salinity.
Seeds of tomatoes were pretreated with an aerated PEG (4000) solution of -12 bar for 8 days at 16°C. During treatment the embryo increased in size.
The seeds were sown in seed trays containing loamy sand with different levels of salt (0 to 8g NaCl + Mg SO₄ per kg soil). In growth rooms at 18°C the emerged seedlings were counted every day.

In general the higher the salt-level the later and lower in percentage was the emergence.
PEG-treated seeds showed a smaller reaction to increasing salt levels, especially under conditions with increasing salinity as a result of decreasing soil water content.
Outdoor experiments with increasing N-fertilizer applications before sowing brought comparable results.
Further investigations have shown that the salt tolerance was increasing with the development stage in the range of untreated seeds, PEG treated seeds, pregerminated seeds and seedlings.

Symposium on the Timing of Field Production of Vegetables

H.-J. Wiebe, T. Muhyaddin

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1987.198.11