PLANT CELL BIOTECHNOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Seed priming has the potential to speed up emergence rate and vegetative growth, an effective way to develop early maturing varieties under prevalent environmental conditions. Ascorbate seed priming boosts up vegetative growth in fodder sorghum production. The present research work was planned to evaluate and identify an accurate level of ascorbic acid for seed priming to get maximum green biomass yield and related characters in ten cultivated varieties of fodder sorghum. To achieve consistent contents of ascorbate, sorghum varieties were treated with three levels of ascorbic acid i.e., 75 ppm, 100 ppm, and 125ppm, and sown under controlled conditions. To check the results, seeds of all varieties were also sown under ascorbate-free soil media as control. Effectiveness of ascorbic acid level was measured by recording morphological traits such as emergence percentage, speedy shoot, root length, proliferation in FSW, FRW, DSW and DRW, PBY, protein and fiber contents in leaves and stem of plants. The mean comparison showed that genotypes, treatments, and their interactions were significant for all traits. The results revealed that genotypes 6197 and B-203 performed better under ascorbic acid priming and might be valuable in further breeding programs.