• D.S. BALAJI
• Dr. G. SATHIYA NARAYANAN

Small millets comprising six species are grown in India over covers 2 million ha, mostly in semi-arid, hilly and mountainous regions. India has the third largest area under small millets cultivation in the world. Millets require few inputs and withstand severe biotic and a biotic stresses. They are also more nutritious than major cereals. Despite these advantages, neglect in several arenas has resulted in a steady decline in the cultivation of minor millets in India over the past few decades. Seed priming conditioning is one of the physiological methods that improves seed performance and provides faster and synchronized germination. It is an easy, low cost and low risk technique and recently being used to overcome the salinity and drought problem in agricultural lands. In vitro evaluation was carried out to study the influence of halo priming treatments on seed quality in certain minor millets under drought condition. Freshly harvested bulk seeds of above minor millets of Varagu, Samai, Kuthiraivali, Tenai and Panivaragu were imposed with the following seed treatments i.e. Water (hydro priming), Kcl @ 2 % , Kcl @ 3 % , KNO3 @ 2 %, KNO3@ 3 %, KH2PO4 @ 2 % and KH2PO4 @ 3 %. Priming the seeds of above millets seeds were soaked in above solution for 6 hrs by adopting the seed to solution ratio of 1:1 under ambient conditions. The treated seeds were evaluated for its seedling quality characters. The study revealed that the minor millet, Varagu cv CO 3 and Kuthiraivali cv CO 1 seeds halo primed with KH2PO4 2 % for 6 h and Tenai cv. CO 6, Samai cv. CO 3 and Panivaragu cv. CO 4 seeds halo primed with KH2PO4 3 % for 6 h recorded higher seed qualities i.e. higher speed of emergence, germination percentage, seedling length, dry matter production and vigour index, when compared to other treatments.

Minor millets, halo priming, seed quality, etc.

"INFLUENCE OF HALO PRIMING TREATMENTS ON SEED QUALITY IN CERTAIN MINOR MILLETS UNDER DROUGHT CONDITION", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no.744-753, May-2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRBP06129.pdf

"INFLUENCE OF HALO PRIMING TREATMENTS ON SEED QUALITY IN CERTAIN MINOR MILLETS UNDER DROUGHT CONDITION", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 5, page no. pp744-753, May-2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIRBP06129.pdf