ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Effect of Accelerated Aging and Growth Regulators on Germination and Vigour of Phaseoluse vulgaris L. 

Legumes play very important role in agriculture as they form associations with bacteria that, fix nitrogen from the air. French bean is used in all over of the world as an edible vegetable crop. Seed ageing is the main problem of seed storage. Changes of bio-chemical and reduction of seedling growth are consequence of seed deterioration. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of accelerated ageing on French bean seed germination and vigour indexes and hormone activity. Seeds of Phaseolus vulgaris L. were treated by accelerating treatments for 4, 6 and 8 days and the influence of ageing, GA3 (20, 30 & 40 ppm) and IBA (5, 10 & 20 ppm) under different concentrations in 8 days aged seeds of French bean were observed. Various parameters were taken for consideration such as germination percentage, along with the mean daily germination, speed of germination, dry weight of seedling and vigour index-I & II.  Seeds of P. vulgaris showed 96.66% germination without any treatment (control condition) but during the exposure of specific temperature (42°C) with 100% relative humidity, seeds showed 30% reduction in germination just after 8 days of ageing treatments. While the treatment for 4 and 6 days did not show any remarkable changes in percent germination. So the seeds treated for ageing for 8 days were taken to enhance the germination by treatment of different hormones i.e. GA3 and IBA with different concentrations. Aged seeds treated with GA3 20 ppm showed high germination (82.99%) in comparison to GA3 40 ppm (66.32%).