The Effect of Seed Priming on Yield, Yield Components and Grain Quality Characteristics of Rainfed Wheat in Kurdistan Province

In order to investigate the effect of seed priming on yield, yield components and some quality characteristics of rainfed wheat Azar2 cultivar, an experiment was conducted as a randomized complete blocks design with three replications in the Research Field of Kurdistan University, Sannandaj, Iran during two seasons (2018-2020). Priming treatments included control (nonprime), potassium chloride (1%), urea (2%), zinc sulfate (0.6%), calcium chloride (1.4%), vitasprin (1 g. l-1), cytokinin (50 ppm) and water (hydroprime). The results showed that in both years, priming of seeds with calcium chloride and water had positive effects on grain yield. In 2018-2019, calcium chloride priming increased the grain yield by 41% due mainly to increasing the number of spikes, biological yield and thousand kernel weight. In 2019-2020 grain yield increased by 10% due mainly to increasing thousand kernel weight. Also, in 2018-2019, seed priming with water increased grain yield by 27% due mainly to increasing the number of spikes and biological yield, and in 2019-2020 the 21% increase in grain yield was achieved by increasing biological yield and thousand kernel weight. Given the positive effects of hydropriming in both years and the high cost of using chemical compounds and nutrients for seed priming, hydropriming is proposed as a cost-effective method to increase grain yield of wheat in rainfed conditions.