DILTA, B SCHOUHAN, RAJNISH2019-01-092019-01-092018-10http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810089539ABSTRACT The present investigation titled, “Studies on seed priming in sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus L.)” was carried out at the Experimental Farm of Department of Seed Science & Technology, Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan (H P) during 2017-18. The study was carried out in three separate experiments. The experiment-I was carried under laboratory conditions using Completely Randomized Design with four replications. The experiment comprised of 14 different seed priming treatments viz., T1(Priming of seeds with Rhizobium isolate-I for 24 hours), T1 (Priming of seeds with Rhizobium isolate-II for 24 hours), T3 (Priming of seeds with Trichoderma viride @ 1× 105 cfu/ml for 24 hours), T4(Priming of seeds with GA3 @ 50 ppm for 24 hours), T5 (Priming with of seeds GA3 @ 100 ppm for 24 hours), T6(Priming of seeds with GA3 @ 150 ppm for 24 hours), T7 (Priming of seeds with GA3 @ 200 ppm for 24 hours), T8( Hydropriming of seeds with distilled water for 24 hours), T9 (Priming of seeds with PEG-6000 @ -0.5 M Pa for 24 hours), T10 (Priming of seeds with PEG-6000 @ -1.0 M Pa for 24 hours), T11 (Priming of seeds with solid matrix for 24 hours), T12 (Priming of seeds with cow urine @ 2% for 24 hours), T13 (Priming of seeds with beejamrit @ 10% for 24 hours) and T14 (Control or No priming). Among different priming treatments, T5 i.e. Priming of seeds with GA3 @ 100 ppm for 24 hours recorded maximum values for 100 seed weight (8.09 g), speed of germination (26.25), germination percentage (87.75 %), seedling length (30.25 cm), seedling dry weight (19.27 mg), seed vigour index-I (2654.25) and seed vigour index-II (1691.21). The experiment-II was conducted in a Randomized Block Design and replicated thrice under field conditions. To accomplish this experiment, the seeds were taken treatment wise as mentioned in the experiment-I. the results obtained indicated that T5 i.e. priming of seeds with GA3 @ 100 ppm for 24 hours observed maximum values for field emergence (80.25 %), plant height 30 DAS (29 cm), plant height 60 DAS (56.71 cm), plant height at final harvest (134.17 cm), number of flowers / plant (33.78), number of flowers / plot (912.15), size of flower (3.06 cm), duration of flowering (48.50 days), numbers of pods / plant (26.83), number of seeds / pod (7.43), number of seeds/plant (199.35), seed yield / plant (13.51 g) and seed yield / plot (336.77 g) as well as minimum days taken to first flowering (106.00 days),. The experiment-III was laid out in a Completely Randomized Design with four replications under laboratory conditions. The seeds were taken treatment wise harvested from the plants grown under experiment-II. The results revealed that the seeds harvested from the plants raised from the seeds following priming with GA3 @ 100 ppm for 24 hours recorded maximum values for 100 seed weight (6.78 g), speed of germination (24.67), germination percentage (85.25 %), seedling length (25.82 cm), seedling dry weight (14.71 mg), seed vigour index-I (2201.19) and seed vigour index-II (1253.85). Hence, it is concluded that for better plant growth, flowering, maximum seed yield as well as production of quality seeds, the sweet pea seeds be primed with GA3 @ 100 ppm for 24 hours.ennullThesis