Influence of Specific Gravity Grading Using Floatation Technique on seed and Seedling Quality Characteristics in Amaranthus CV. PLR 1

Abstract

Study was undergone to evaluate the efficacy of floatation grading on the seeds of Amaranthus Cv. PLR 1 using organic solvents in Department of Seed Science and Technology, TNAU, Coimbatore during March 2023.The experiment was laid out in Completely Randomized Design with four replications in each five treatments. We considered four organic solvents viz., Acetone, Methanol, Dichloromethane and Petroleum Ether along with water and observed the seed recovery percentage, germination percentage, root length, shoot length and vigour index of all the treatments. The results showed that sinker fraction regardless of organic solvent and water performed better than floater fraction. The grading ability of Dichloromethane was greater among the assessed organic solvents. The sinkers seed recovery percent of dichloromethane (93%) was higher than sinkers recovered by water (63%). Also, the sinkers of dichloromethane recorded higher germination percent(77%) and vigour index(304) than the sinkers of water whose germination percent is 55% and vigour index is 272.This specific gravity grading using dichloromethane can be adopted to segregate well filled and ill filled seeds in a seed lot of Amaranthus. This method of floatation grading is a good substitute for sieve grading which requires skilled labour and availability of specific size sieve to properly segregate seeds. So, this can be used as an alternate method for grading Amaranthus seeds.