Combating Moisture Stress in Wheat Through Pre-Sowing Seed Priming

Soil moisture stress causes less germination and poor stand establishment resulting in growth and yield reduction in wheat which can be mitigated by seed priming to some extent. To judge the efficacy of different seed priming agents in enhancing wheat growth and yield under moisture stress an experiment including four irrigation regimes (no irrigation, single irrigation at Crown Root Initiation (CRI) stage, single irrigation at flowering stage and two irrigations at both CRI and flowering stages and six seed priming agents (namely unprimed control, water, CaCl₂, KCl, KNO₃ and mannitol) was conducted following a split-plot design with three replications. Seed priming exhibited a positive role in enhancing wheat growth and productivity under both irrigated and moisture stress condition. No irrigation resulted in the lowest grain yield while two irrigations at both the critical stages produced the highest grain yield. The maximum grain yield (3.0 t ha^-1) was produced by two irrigations coupled with CaCl₂ or KCl priming, while no irrigation coupled with no priming produced the minimum grain yield (1.2 t ha^-1). Therefore, seed priming preferably with 20000 ppm KCl or CaCl₂ may be practiced to alleviate the moisture stress in wheat to some extent.