Effect of PEG-6000 Osmoticum on Seed Germination and Seedling Growth of Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) Genotypes

Background: Drought, extreme temperatures, salinity, chemical toxicity and oxidative stress are such environmental stresses, that are serious threats to agriculture globally and result in the deterioration of the environment and crops. To Study the effect of drought stress on seed germination and early establishment in different crop varieties, PEG (Polyethylene Glycol) induced drought stress is the most common screening method. The species and its variety, its growing conditions and the developmental stage of the plant, as well as osmotic concentration responded differently to osmotic stress. The current study aimed to study the effect of different concentrations of PEG-6000 in eight genotypes of lentil in order to understand the management and control of drought stress-related problems in crop plants. Methods: The experimental work was conducted during 2018-2019 at the Laboratory of Botany, S.S. Jain Subodh P.G. (Autonomous) College, Jaipur to study the effect of drought stress during early growth of genotypes of Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik.) under osmotic stress. The plant material consisted of eight genotypes belonging to the macrosperma and microsperma subspecies of lentil (Lens culinaris M.). PL-4, L-4147, L-4594 and L-4596 belong to the microsperma subspecies and K-75, L-4076, DPL-15 and DPL-62 belong to the macrosperma subspecies. Result: In conclusion, due to their better values of germination percentage (GP%), germination relative index (GRI), seedling vigor index (SVI) and seedling growth under simulated drought conditions PL-4, L-4594, DPL-15 and DPL-62 stand out as the most tolerant lentil genotypes among eight species studied in this work. These genotypes showed a significant enhancement in germination percentage (%), germination relative index, seedling vigor index and seedling length under mild moisture stress. Our results confirmed that PEG-induced drought stress can be used to study the drought-tolerant species by studying a few parameters viz. germination percentage, germination relative index and, seedling vigour index, that will result in increased crop production.