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EFFECT OF STORAGE CONTAINERS AND SEED TREATMENTS ON SEED GERMINATION AND VIGOUR OF BLACK GRAM (VIGNA MUNGO (L.) HEPPER)

One of the most important basic needs for higher agricultural production is quality seed, characterized by high viability and vigour. Maintenance of seed viability and vigour from Harvest till the next growing season is of the utmost importance in a seed production programme. During seed storage, qualitative and quantitative losses of up to 20% have been reported in India. The poor seed quality may also be due to the poor storability which is very often being decided by the internal and external factors. In pulses, the major cause for seed deterioration during storage is bruchid damage. In this context, evolving an improved storage strategy to prolong the shelf life of seeds under ambient storage conditions with easily available cost-effective resources was carried out. The experiment was conducted at the Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Annamalai University, Annamalai nagar. Freshly harvested seeds of black gram cv. ADT 3 were cleaned and graded using BSS, 8x8 wire mesh sieve. Then seeds were dried under sunlight to bring the moisture content to required level (8.5%). The seeds were treated with Thiram @ 2g kg, Neem oil @ 10ml kg and Malathion dust @ 200 mg kg. Two hundred and fifty grams of seeds from all treatments along with control were packed in two containers viz. cloth bag and polythene bag (700 gauges) with three replication and stored in at ambient temperature (30c – 35c) and relative humidity of 52-80%. Seed samples were drawn from each replication at monthly interval for assessing the viability and vigour. Germination test was conducted in between paper method and seedlings were evaluated on seventh day for vigour index bruchid infestation. The untreated seeds recorded lower germination per cent and vigour index after seven months of storage. There was no bruchid damage on seeds treated with neem oil @ 10ml kg and thiram @ 2g kg. It was concluded that the shelf life of black gram seeds could be increased by treating the seeds with neem oil and stored either by polythene bag (700 gauges) or cloth bag.