Effective Seed Priming Methods Improving Germination and Emergence of Sugar Beet Under Low-Temperature Stress

Low soil temperature causes delayed and unsynchronized germination, emergence, and seedling growth, which increases the probability of seedling diseases and weed infestation during stand establishment of sugar beet. In this study, different seed priming methods (control, hydration, aerated hydration, preconditioning, GA3, KNO3, and kinetin) were examined to promote the germination, emergence, and seedling growth performance of sugar beet seeds under low temperatures (10 °C and 18 °C) and optimum (25 °C) conditions. Results showed that seed treatments gave higher germination, emergence, and seedling length along with shorter mean time to germination and emergence than unprimed seeds at low and optimum temperatures. However, a suitable seed treatment at low and optimum temperature was different. Preconditioning gave better results than the control seeds, while it was not superior to other seeds treatments. At 10 °C, emergence percentage increased from 37.0% in unprimed seeds to 99.5% in seeds treated with 1% of KNO3. The lower temperature resulted in delaying the mean time to germination and emergence. Aerated hydration was found to be most suitable method for enhancement of germination and seedling growth at all temperatures. It was concluded that 8–16 h of hydration with aeration or 1% of KNO3 should be recommended for enhancement of emergence and seedling growth of sugar beet under low temperature compared to other treatments.