Abstract:

In order to investigate the effect of priming on canola seed performance under drought stress a study
was carried out at the Seed Research Laboratory of Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran. The experiment was a
factorial with three factors arranged in a completely randomized design with three replications. The first factor
was seed priming (control (untreated), KNO and distilled water), the second was 3 drought stress levels (0.0, -0.3,
-0.6, -0.9, -1.2 and -1.5 MPa) and the third was canola cultivars (Okapi and Talayeh). Results indicated that for
both cultivars germination percentage (GP), mean germination rate (MGR), radicle length (RL), plumule length
(PL) and seedling dry weight (SDW) were reduced when drought stress level were increased from 0 to -1.5 MPa.
Although, the cultivars showed different responses to the increased drought stress level. For all of the traits
under study, the best results due to the priming treatments were obtained at the drought stress levels higher
than -0.6 or -0.9 MPa. So that, at the -1.5 MPa of drought stress level, GP, MGR, RL, PL and SDW were improved
128.62, 200, 223.08, 350 and 69.94%, respectively by KNO3 and 21.44, 71.43, 219.23, 100 and 41.18%, respectively
by distilled water when compared with control. However, seeds primed with KNO3 showed better performance
than those primed with distilled water. In general, this study revealed that seed priming especially with KNO3
improved canola seed performance under drought stress condition. However, the improvements were more
obvious at the higher levels of drought stress.