Effect of Seed Size and Seed Priming on Stand Establishment, Wheat Productivity and Profitability under Different Tillage Systems

No-tillage (NT) offers pragmatic option to address the time and edaphic conflicts in rice-wheat system. However, stand establishment is poor in NT systems due to less seed-soil contact. In this scenario, seed priming might be useful to improve the stand establishment, productivity and profitability in rice-wheat system. In this 2-year study, we evaluated the role of seed priming in improving the stand establishment and productivity of wheat grown from different seed size under different tillage systems. The experiment consisted of three seed priming treatments (unprimed seeds, hydroprimed seeds and osmoprimed seeds), three seed size (bold, medium and small) and two tillage systems (NT and conventional tillage). In both years, seed priming improved the stand establishment of wheat as indicated by reduction in time to start emergence, time to 50% emergence, mean emergence time, and improvement in final emergence. In this regard, osmopriming remained better than the hydropriming. Improvement in stand establishment due to seed priming improved the morphological and yield parameters of wheat. Osmopriming produced a highest grain yield of 4.70 Mg ha(-1) against the unprimed seeds where it was 4.36 Mg ha(-1). The highest net benefits were recorded with osmoprimed bold seeds; while benefit cost ratio was the highest in hydroprimed bold seeds in both tillage systems with either seed size. Overall, bold seeds produced more vigorous stand than the medium and small sized-seed sown crop. In conclusion, seed priming in NT and conventional tillage systems is a pragmatic option to improve the stand establishment, productivity and profitability of wheat with either seed size. (C) 2018 Friends Science Publishers