Impact of PGRS and nutrients pre-soaking on seed germination and seedling characters of mung bean under salt stress

An experiment was conducted to study the impact of seed soaking with plant growth regulators (gibberellic acid, indole acetic acid, kinetin, salicylic acid and ascorbic acid) and nutrients (potassium chloride and calcium chloride) on mung bean (Vigna radiata L.) variety Co (Gg) 8 under salt stress condition. The seed and seedling growth under normal and saline (150 mM NaCl) conditions were studied to determine their usefulness in increasing relative salt tolerance by using PGRs and nutrients. Under salt stress, seedling characters were significantly affected compared to normal condition: Seed. treatments with gibberellic acid (1mM), salicylic acid (2 mM), ascorbic acid (50 ppm) and kinetin (50 ppm) drastically increased the morphological and biochemical parameters of seedling under saline conditions. All pre-soaking seed-treatments increased the germination percentage, shoot and root length, vigour index and stress tolerance index over control. Among the treatments, gibberellic acid, salicylic acid and ascorbic acid showed their supremacy compared to other treatments. Na+/K+ ratio was decreased by gibberellic acid, CaCl2 (0.5%) and KCl (1%) treatments. It is concluded that treatments with hormones and nutrients have reduced the severity of the salinity effect and the amelioration was observed in all the treatments compare to control. Gibberellic acid and salicylic acid and ascorbic acid showed best results on seedling growth and biochemical characters whereas seed soaking with gibberellic acid, CaCl2 (0.5%) and KCl (1%) were showed its effect on decreased Na+/K+ ratio under present experimental material and saline conditions.