Thermal hardening improves germination and early seedling growth of chickpea

Poor quality seeds of chickpea have germination problem and issue is serious in chickpea growing areas where quality seed is not available. This study was an attempt to solve the problem. Experiment was done in Seed Technology Laboratory of Department of Agronomy, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. Two chickpea cultivars viz. Kabli type cultivar Noor-91 and desi type cultivar Punjab-91 were treated with different temperatures of 40, 50 and 60 oC at 24, 48 and 72 hrs. Different thermal hardening treatments significantly improved different germination related traits including germination percentage, germination index, germination energy and reduced time taken for 50% germination. Similarly heating of chickpea seeds resulted in more number of secondary roots, and improved fresh and dry weights. Although germination was improved with thermal treatments at 40 and 50 oC for different time durations, however, an increased temperature (60 oC) was better only at 24 hrs and keeping seeds at this temperature for more time resulted in reduced germination and other traits. It is thus concluded that thermal hardening at 40 and 50 oC for up to 72 hrs can be used to improve germination of chickpea.