ENHANCEMENT OF SWEET GOURD SEEDLING QUALITIES PRIMING WITH H2O2

A study with three independent experiments for the seeds of three vegetable species was set at the roof top of Sunway Dormitory near the Bus Terminal, Dinajpur, Bangladesh, during March to May, 2019. The aims were to evaluate the physiological fluctuations in the seeds of sweet gourd cv. Monitaraprimed with the aqueous solutions of H2O2 and to find the suitable concentration. Each experiment had eight treatments: T1 (control/no priming), T2 (hydro-priming in plain H2O) and other six aquatic solutions of H2O2: T3 (0.5), T4 (1.0), T5 (1.5), T6 (2.0), T7 (2.5) and T8 (3.0%). The seeds were soaked for six hours in those seven media (T2 toT8). The seeds were dibbled in wooden seed flats filled-in with coarse sand. The experiments were laid-out in the Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Data collected for the 13 traits viz. % germination, % abnormal seedlings, shoot length, root length, seedling length, shoot dry matter, root dry matter, seedling dry matter, number of secondary roots (>1cm) per seedling, number of true leaves per seedling, relative growth rate, seedling vigor index, and root : shoot ratio (dry weight basis). Except the first two traits, the rest 11 were collected at three stagesviz.10, 20 and 30 days after dibbling (DAD). It was lucid that H2O2 was significantly (P≤0.05%) effective to improve most of the traits noted. Treatment T4 (1% concentration) was utmost helpful for sweet gourd and >1.5%, others were toxic and hindered the maximum parameters for all the three species. Nevertheless, further studies with different varieties of those three vegetables species with variable doses of H2O2, priming time and temperature could be explored before drawing valid conclusions.