International Journal of Horticulture 2015, Vol.5, No.7, 1
-
5
1
Research Report Open Access
Effect of seed Treatments and Containers on storability of Grain amaranthus
(
Amaranthus hypochondriacus
L.) CV. Suvarna
Manikandan S.
1
, Srimathi P.
2
1. Department of Seed Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore – 641 003, Tamil Nadu, India
2. Seed Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore – 641 003, Tamil Nadu, India
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Horticulture, 2015, Vol.5, No.7 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2015.05.0007
Received: 24 Mar., 2015
Accepted: 25 May, 2015
Published: 03 Jun., 2015
Copyright
© 2015 Manikandan and Srimathi, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Manikandan and Srimathi, 2015, Effect of seed Treatments and Containers on storability of Grain amaranthus (
Amaranthus hypochondriacus
L.) CV. Suvarna,
International Journal of Horticulture, 2015, Vol.5, No.7 1-5 (doi
Abstract
The laboratory experiment was conducted at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India to
elucidate the influence of pre-storage seed treatments and containers on storability of seeds of grain amaranthus (
Amaranthus
hypochondriacus
L.) Cv. Suvarna. The study revealed that, among the treatments, seeds treated with Carbendazim and Imidacloprid
at 2 g kg
–1
seed and 100 mg kg
–1
seed, respectively and stored in poly laminated aluminum foil pouch maintained maximum
germination of 97 percent after six months of seed storage. The seed quality characters in terms of physiological and biochemical
parameters decreased with ageing irrespective of containers and seed treatments of grain amaranthus.
Keywords
Grain amaranthus; Seed storage; Pre-storage treatments; Containers, Periods; Quality characters
Introduction
Grain amaranth native of Central America,
(Stallknecht and Schulz-Schaeffer, 1993) belongs to
the family of Amaranthaceae. Pale-seeded, highly
nutritive grain amaranth is rich in lysine (5%) and
sulphur aminoacid (4.4%) which are the limiting
amino acids in plant kingdom but required for
balanced human diet (Sounders and Becker, 1983). It
is termed as “Poor man's spinach" and is
recommended for combating malnutrition of the
population in many parts of the world. Hence, it is
considered as an alternative to cereal and this leafy
vegetable propagated only through seeds. Good
quality seed play a vital role in successful seed or crop
production as the end product depends on the quality
of seed used for sowing. Grain amaranthus is one of
the most sensitive seeds susceptible to significant
deterioration after year’s storage. Seeds are required to
be kept in safe storage since they are harvested in the
preceding season and usually used for sowing in the
subsequent season often after a time gap of six months
or longer. During the aging process, seeds lose their
vigor, ability to germinate and ultimately become less
viable (Maity, Roy, M. Pal, C. Pal, Chakrabarti and
Bhattacharjee. 2000). Losses in seed quality occur
during field weathering, harvesting and storage.
Several intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the
viability of seeds during storage. Among intrinsic and
extrinsic factors, seed moisture content, relative
humidity, temperature of storage, pests and diseases
and oxygen availability are more important.
Polyethylene and aluminum foil materials were
effective in preventing moisture uptake and
maintaining seed viability, while paper and cloth
containers were least effective (Wilson and McDonald,
1992). Seed deterioration is an inexorable and an
irreversible process. One of symptom of seed
deterioration is membrane deterioration (Copeland
and McDonald, 1995). Carbendazim is a systemic
fungicide comes under the group of carbamate which
inhibits mitosis and DNA synthesis of microbes and
thereby extend the shelf life of seed while
Imidacloprid is an chlorinated analog of nicotine, the
compound therefore belongs to the class of
chloronicotinyl insecticides, and acts on the nicotinic
acetylcholine receptor; the chlorination inhibits
degradation by acetylcholine-esterase (Nene nad
Thapliyal, 1971). Imidacloprid is notable for its
relatively low toxicity to most animals other than
insects due to its specificity for this type of receptor,
which is found more often in insect nervous systems.
This potentially allows for lower concentrations (e.g.
0.05 – 0.125 lb/acre or 55 – 140 g/ha) to be used for
insect control (EXTOXNET- Extension Toxicology
Network). Since research in grain amaranthus seed
storage with seed treatments is scanty, the present
