the effect of seed priming on seed deterioration of chickpea (cicer arietinum l.)

Introduction: seed priming is a technique that strengthens and accelerates the process of germination and seedling growth. since seed deterioration as a natural process can lead to reduced germination and seed growth (chen et al., 2014), finding solutions that can reduce the effects of seed deterioration is necessary. the use of techniques such as priming with smoke-water is remarkable to improve seed germination in different environmental conditions (diaz-vivancos et al., 2013). smoke-water has cytokine-like activity that helps germination. in addition to bioactive and phenolic compounds, smoke-water contains many elements, including nitrogen. this relatively new application technology for smoke-water offers great potential in conventional and organic agriculture (jain et al., 2008; aremu et al., 2016). since a significant amount of chickpea seeds are kept in warehouses for seed consumption and may be worn out due to different factors, this experiment was designed and implemented to investigate the effect of priming chickpea seeds with smoke-water. materials and methods: after sterilizing chickpea seeds (mansour variety), first, they deteriorated in 20% humidity and at 72 °c for 0, 12, 24 and 36 hours and then primed with concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1 and 2 percent in smoke-water for 15 hours. after priming, the chickpea seeds dried, and after a few days, the germination test performed in a petri dish with distilled water at a temperature of 25 °c in a germinator. it took 7 days to investigate the traits and germination period. the experiment was conducted as a factorial in based on a completely randomized design (crd) with three replications. the smoke-water prepared by burning plant residues and in the campus of agriculture and natural resources. the measured parameters including germination percentage, radicle and shoot length, seed germination index, root thickness, radicle to shoot length ratio, lateral root growth, total root length to plant height ratio, radicle and shoot length growth ratio, seedling dry weight, root growth ratio, stem and root growth ratio. data analyzed using spss software and averages compared through least significant difference (lsd) test. results and discussion: the results showed that increasing the concentration of smoke-water had a positive effect on increasing the germination of control treatment. in the 12-hour deterioration treatment, germination increased with increasing the concentration of smoke-water. the highest germination percentage (84%) obtained in the treatment of 1% smoke-water and 12 hours of deterioration, while the treatment of 2% water smoke and 36 hours of deterioration resulted in a decrease in germination percentage (figure 1). in the 24 and 36-hour deterioration treatments, the smoke treatment had no effect on the increase in germination. although no clear reason can be found why the effects of smoke-water on germination increased in the 12-hour deterioration compared to the control. but the effects of smoke-water were significant on germination. these findings are consistent with research that has shown the positive effects of smoke-water on germination (becerra-vázquez et al., 2020; chen et al., 2014). the length of radicle and stem investigated as indicators of seed germination in this study. the treatment of 1% smoke-water and 12 hours of deterioration showed the maximum length of root (8.1 cm) and shoot (7.3 cm) (table 1). these results showed that lower smoke-water concentration can improve the effect of short-term deterioration in root and stem growth. on the other hand, high concentrations of smoke-water (2%) and longer deterioration (36 h) led to a decrease in the length of radicle and shoot, which may be due to oxidative damage and physiological changes caused by seed deterioration (singh et al., 2015). conclusion: in general, the results of this research showed that the use of smoke-water has strengthened the germination and seedling growth, and use of 1% smoke-water had positive effect on 12 hours of deterioration. although, high concentrations of smoke-water have not been able to reduce the effect of long-term deterioration. these results can be used as a suitable solution to improve the performance of chickpea seeds in different environmental conditions.