Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EARLY GERMINATION TRAITS - A COMPREHENSION OF THE RELATIONS WITH OTHER EARLY SEEDLING VIGOUR TRAITS IN RICE

Preeti Sagar Negi, Chandu Singh, Ranjith Kumar Ellur, Manjunath Prasad C., Gopala Krishnan S., Vinod K. K., Viswanathan C., Monika Atul Joshi1 and Arun Kumar M.B.

Abstract

The early emergence and uniform establishment of seedlings are crucial in direct seeded rice cultivation (DSR). The process of seedling emergence is influenced by complex factors and characteristics that operate during both seed germination and heterotrophic seedling growth phases. Therefore, it is important to identify and understand the traits specific to these early phases. In this study, we report on the early germination traits, including time to 50 percent lemma rupture (TFLR), time to 50 percent coleoptile emergence (TFCE), and time to 50 percent radicle emergence (TFRE), and their variability among rice genotypes. Although TFRE has been previously associated with other ESV traits, comprehensive studies of TFLR and TFCE have not been conducted. Additionally, previous studies utilized rice seed batches of varying aging periods to examine the impact of seed aging on ESV traits, making it challenging to draw definitive conclusions about freshly harvested seeds of different rice genotypes. Therefore, we assessed the relationship between the early germination traits and other ESV traits in rice and found that TFLR, TFCE, and TFRE have highly significant positive correlations with each other, but significant negative correlations with all other ESV traits like shoot length, root length, seedling length, shoot fresh weight, root fresh weight, seedling fresh weight, germination percentage, and Vigour index-I. Further the importance of early germination traits in seedling emergence and DSR system are discussed.