The Effects of Some Seed Priming Treatments on Germination and Seedling Development in Wheat

Drought stress has negative effects on plant metabolism and growth. Seed priming is one of the ways used to strengthen crop plants at the seed stage against drought stress. In this study, the physiological effects of seed priming (1, 12, 24, and 48 hours) and foliar treatments of H2O2 (50  M) and GR24 (20  M) on 21 day old wheat seedlings (drought sensitive Triticum aestivum cv. 95 and drought tolerant cv. Tosunbey) were studied. The plant samples were used to determine the total chlorophyll content, total protein amount, root and stem length, seedling weight, and specific leaf area. Our results showed that only GR24 increased growth in the Tosunbey variety with seed priming. On the other hand, foliar GR24 was effective in both varieties against the detrimental effect of PEG induced osmotic stress, while foliar H2O2 treatment was effective only in the Tosunbey variety. Generally, it has been determined that the GR24 application supports the growth in both varieties, while the H2O2 treatment increases the growth only in drought tolerant wheat variety. Keywords: Wheat, Drought stress, Seed priming, GR24, H2O2, germination, growth. DOI: 10.7176/JSTR/7-05-01