Effect of bio and hormonal priming on seed germination indices of clary sage (Salvia sclarea L.)

Seed priming is a technique in which seeds are physiologically and biochemically prepared to germinate prior to planting and facing with environmental conditions. In this way, two separate experiments were carried out to evaluate the effect of priming of clary sage seeds with plant growth promoting bacteria and plant growth regulators as a completely randomized design with three replications in the Horticultural Sciences Laboratory at Islamic Azad University, Miyaneh Branch, Miyaneh, Iran in 2015. Biopriming treatments including 15 types of PGPRs belonged to Herbaspirillum, Azotobacter-12, Azospirillum, Flavobacterium and Pseudomonas genera and hormonal priming including gibberellic acid and kintin at concentrations of 50 and 100 ppm along with hydroperiming and control (no priming) tratments. Twenty five primed seeds were placed in each petri dishes containing filter paper and seed germination numbers were recorded every other day. Results showed that biopriming affected on all traits exept mean germination time (MGT) and coefficient of velocity of germination (CVG). Biopriming with Azotobacter-12 reduced germination percentage (GP), germination speed (GS) and mean daily germination (MDG) and only increased daily germination speed (DGS). In hormonal priming, all germination indices were affected by treatments and application of growth regulators reduced CVG and increased MGT. Also, kinetin at 100 ppm concentration reduced GP, GS and MDG and only increased DGS.