Effects of hydropriming and drought stress on germination traits and seedling growth of Cymbopogon olivieri

To evaluate the effects of hydropriming and drought stress on germination traits of cymbopogon olivieri the experimental design was two factors factorial arranged in a completely randomized design, with four replications and 50 seeds per replicate. The first factor was hydropriming (in four levels), the second, polyethylene glycol 6000 (in four levels), in laboratory conditions. That data were analyzed using spss software. The difference between the means was compared using duncan test (p<0.05). ANOVA Results indicated that the interaction between hydropriming time treatment and polyethylene glycol treatment caused significant differences in germination rate, shoot length, shoot wet and dry weight (P<0.01) and vigor index (P<0.05 ). But it caused no significant differences in parameters of percentage of germination, average germination time, root length, root wet and dry weight. The highest percentage of germination was related to the treatment by -4 bar PEG and without priming (control). The lowest percentage of germination was resulted under hydropriming in 48h and treatment by -8 bar polyethylen glycol respectively 49 and 14 percent. The highest rate of germination was related to the treatment by -8 bar PEG and hydropriming in 48h. Also seeds didn’t germinated in -16 bar of PEG in all hydropriming times. The results showed that the treatments by -4 and -8 bar PEG during 48 and 72 hours hydropriming caused the most positive effects on seed germination percentage, germination rate, vigor index, root length, shoot length of cymbopogon olivieri seeds.