Effect of Pre-germination Technique on Enhancing Seed and Seedling Vigour in Ridge gourd (LuffaacutanglaRoxb.)

Sowing pre-germinated seeds has proved to be an effective techniqueto obtain early emergence, optimum field stand and high germinationpercentage. Before sowing, the pre-germination method could be used toseparate dead seed and as dead low vigor seeds to get high vigor seeds,which can be taken for sowing. With this notion, an experiment was conductedwith ridge gourd seed var. PKM 1 with two factors, one as soaking duration(6, 9, 12, 16, 20, and 24 h) and other as the incubation periods (1, 2, 3and 4 days). Seeds were soaked in distilled water for the above-mentioneddifferent durations in a 1:1 ratio on a volume basis. After a specified periodof soaking, the seeds were placed in between the moist gunny bags andkept for incubation under dark conditions. Data were collected for differentparameters viz., sprouting percentage, germination percentage, root length,shoot length, dry matter production and vigor index I & II and analyzed.Results obtained from the study showed that there is a significant differencebetween the treatments and seeds soaked in water for 20h with one-dayincubation recorded the highest values in all the parameters. The seedsthat were incubated without soaking performed similar to that of absolutecontrol because of the presence of hard seed coat. Whereas, seeds thatwere soaked but not incubated had performed better than dry seed andonly incubated seeds. This might be because, soaking seeds in waterstimulates the pre-germinative metabolism, activates enzymes earlier andalso releases the physical dormancy of ridge gourd seeds which makes theseed to germinate easier and faster. Hence, the study concluded that thistechnique might be considered as farmer’s friendly method that can beused to separate live seed in a seed lot, which will be useful for producinghealthy seedlings, maintaining optimum plant population and uniformity inseedling emergence of ridge gourd.