Improving Soybean Seed Performance with Natural Colorant-based Novel Seed-Coats

摘要

In the present study, Tagetes erecta, Rheum emodi, and Curcuma longa extracts and their combination with commercial polymer-based seed coats have been developed. Seed coats were screened for enhancing the keeping quality of soybean /Glycine max (L.) Merr.J seeds. Loss in seed-quality parameters, such as percent germination, growth, seed vigor, moisture, and longevity were studied. The reduction in percent germination was lowest (7.40%) for natural colorant-based seed coats as compared with commercialpolymer-coated seeds (12.20%) and uncoated seeds (17.27%) across six month storage period. Seeds coated with T. erecta methanol extract concentrate (Te MC) exhibited 82.7% germination, the highest among all treatments. A significant correlation (r = 0.846; P = 0.01) between seed vigor indices and the germination of the treated seeds was observed. The study revealed the effectiveness of natural colorant-based seed-coatings in reducing overall progressive decrease in seed-quality parameters, and therebyimproving seed germination. Such natural colorant-based novel seed-coatings can be used for long-term storage of soybean seeds.