SEED RESERVE UTILIZATION AND SEEDLING GROWTH OF TREATED SEEDS OF MOUNTAIN RYE (SECALE MONTANUM) AS AFFECTED BY DROUGHT STRESS

ABSTRACT. The environmental stress such as, drought are serious obstacles for field crops in further areas of the world, especially in arid and semiarid regions. In order to investigate drought stress on seed reserve utilization and seedling growth of treated seeds of mountain rye (Secale montanum), an experiment was carried out. Factorial experiment was carried out in completely randomized design with three replications. The first factor was the seed treatments (unpriming, hydropriming and osmopriming) and the second factor was drought stress. To create drought stress, polyetylenglycol 6000 (PEG 6000) in osmotic levels at 0 (as control),-0.4,-0.8,-1.2 and-1.6 MPa were used. The results indicated that for these traits: germination percentage (GP), timson index (TI), energy of germination (EG), weight of utilized (mobilized) seed (WMSR), seed reserve utilization efficiency (SRUE), seedling dry weight (SLDW), and seed reserve depletion percentage (SRDP), was a significant treatment × drought interaction. Thus hydropriming and osmopriming improvement study traits in Secale montanum under drought stress. While in higher osmotic pressure the highest seed reserve utilization were obtained from osmopriming