Diwash Khadka , Norgin Blon , Aarati Kafle , Abishek Shrestha

Department of Agronomy, College of Natural Resource Management, Agriculture and Forestry University, Chitwan, 44200, Nepal
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Horticulture, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 6   doi: 10.5376/ijh.2025.15.0031
Received: 25 Jul., 2025    Accepted: 05 Nov., 2025    Published: 26 Dec., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Khadka D., Blon N., Kafle A., and Shrestha A., 2025, Impact of various seed priming on germination of okra (Abelmoschus Esculentus) in laboratory condition, International Journal of Horticulture, 15(6): 312-322 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2025.15.0031)

Seed priming is a pre-sowing technique involving controlled hydration to initiate pre-germinative metabolic activities in seeds, promoting growth and vitality in young plants without actual sprouting. The experiment was executed in Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with eight priming sources (T1: hydropriming i.e. pre-soaked about 12 hours, T2: halopriming i.e. 1% NaCl, T3: osmo-priming i.e. 1% KNO₃, T4: hormonal priming i.e. 2.5 ppm GA₃, T5: nutri-priming i.e. 1.5 ppm SOP, T6: botanical priming i.e. 1ppm neem extract, T7: biological priming i.e. 0.1% cow urine, T8: hydro unsoaked priming) and replicated thrice. Apart from T8, every treatment was saturated for 12 hours and then air dehydrated for 2 hours prior to sowing, while seeds in T8 were only watered along with all the treatments till the end of research. In comparison to hydro (unsoaked) priming, all treatments had a significant meaningful effect on all the germination parameters. The highest shoot length (10.12 cm) was observed at T4 whereas enhancement of root length (4.16 cm) occurred with the priming with T3. The study found that botanical priming and hydro(presoaked)priming enhanced germination plus seed vigor in okra. With this, T8 takes the longest (2.76 days) and T6 takes the shortest (1.34 days) on average. Based on their ability to germinate quickly and uniformly under controlled conditions, T1 showed the high seed vigor index (553) while the T2 showed the lowest seed vigor index (332.3) that assessed the overall quality and potential performance of okra seeds. The priming with T6 (botanical priming) was found to be best in terms of maximum seed germination (90.00%), speed of germination (4.05 seeds per day), germination rate index (7.72 seeds per day) and germination energy (0.9). Thus, botanical priming was found to be effective among different priming techniques under lab conditions which need to be further investigated under large, open field conditions with different varieties.

Sprouting; Seedling; Establishment; Vigor; Vitality