Abstract

*Shah G. Ramanujan, Vallabhbhai Patel and Satyajit H. Kohli

An experiment was conducted in Department of Seed Science and Technology during 2012 to standardize suitable seed dry dressing treatments, using botanicals that can alleviate the deleterious effects of accelerated ageing and improve the physiological performance of both fresh and aged seeds in blackgram variety TNAU blackgram CO 6. Both fresh and four days accelerated aged seeds were dry dressed with fenugreek seed powder, custard apple and moringa leaf powder at 2, 3 and 4 g/kg of seeds with 1, 2 and 3 h of shaking and evaluated for its physiological performance of seedlings under lab condition. The result revealed that seeds treated with 3 g/kg of fenugreek seed powder with 1 h shaking registered an increased physiological performance in terms of germination percentage, shoot length, root length, dry matter production and vigour index for both fresh and aged seeds. This, which was on par with 4 g/kg of custard apple leaf powder treated seeds. Interestingly, the increase in physiological performance of identified seed treatments was more pronounced in aged seeds, indicating the efficacy of botanicals in alleviating the deleterious effect of accelerated ageing. All the botanicals found to contain higher antioxidant activity and rich in minerals such as titanium, molybdenum and iron, apart from other trace elements