Studies on plasma treatment and priming of seeds of bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L.)

The present investigation was carried out at Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan during the year 2014 -2015 to study the “Effect of cold plasma treatment and priming on bell pepper (Capsicum annuum L. cultivar California Wonder) for seed germination and seedling vigour. The seeds were ex-posed to various durations of oxygen plasma treatment using glow discharge technique at FCIPT, Institute for Plas-ma Research, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Seeds were pre-treated with power of 100 W for treatment durations of 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 minutes for 0, 4, 8 and 12 month durations. The changes in surface morphology of plasma treated seeds were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Contact Angle Goniometer. Along with plasma treatment, seeds were also treated with standard priming method i.e osmoprimng for comparison. Results showed that plasma treatment alone as well as in combination with osmoprimng up to 6 minutes duration had positive effects on seed germination and seedling vigour. Germination and vigour indices significantly increased by 21.75% and 90.71% respectively. Characteristics of germination percentage, speed of germination, seedling vigour index-I & II, significantly increased by 13.92%, 1.39 cm, 0.38 mg, 322.07 respectively, compared with control. And it was found that immediately after plasma exposure the germination (84.41%) and vigour (228.50) was highest and it was reduced to (73.54%) and (174.27) after 12 months of storage. These results indicated that cold plasma treatment might promote the growth and modify the speed of germination i.e. higher speed of germination was observed in seeds exposed to plasma treat-ment for 6 minutes (59.82%), whereas, lowest germination speed (40.76%) was observed in untreated control.