Effects of Seed Priming with Caffeine on Germination, Vigour and Seedling Growth of Pepper

Authors

  • Jakkrapong - Kangsopa Maejo University
  • Phetcarat Jeephet

Abstract

The most consumed vegetable by Thai people is pepper. Therefore, in order to receive high yields of pepper with good quality, pepper seeds with a high and constant germination rate are necessary. However, some commercial pepper seeds have problems with low germination rates and low vigor. Hence, the seed growing rate is inconsistent. When planted, those seedlings are destroyed by seedling diseases. Given the aforementioned problems, improving seed quality by priming seeds with caffeine is one method to help farmers the highest seed quality of pepper cultivation. The experimental design is based on the Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with four replications of each set of experiment including the comparison of non-priming seeds, primed seeds with only water, and seeds primed with 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 mM of caffeine. The results are as follows. Tested under laboratory conditions, seeds primed with 10 mM of caffeine had better radicle emergence, germination percentage, speed of radicle emergence, speed of germination, vigor index, germination index, mean germination time, shoot length, root length, and seedling length when compared to non-priming seeds. The differences were also found statistically significant. When tested under greenhouse conditions, primed seeds with only water and primed seed with 20 mM of caffeine had cotyledon emergence and speed of cotyledon emergence faster compared to non-primed seeds. The difference was found statistically significant. On the other hand, seeds primed with 10 mM of caffeine had better germination, and higher speed of germination, and germination index compared to non-priming seeds. Of the differences, they were found statistically significant.Keywords :  seed quality ; seed enhancement ; osmo-priming ; cytokinin; nitrogen

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Published

2021-09-07