Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: IntroductionP akistan is facing a severe deficiency of edible oil and spending a huge amount `of foreign exchange to meet the requirements through imports.This import bill is imposing a severe drain on foreign exchange reserves.Thus, the indigenous edible oil production should be enhanced to reduce drain on the national economy (GoP, 2014).Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is an important non-traditional oilseed crop and is a second most source of edible oil production in the country after cottonseed (Sarwar, 2015).It is a short duration crop of 90-110 days and can be successfully grown twice in a year during spring and autumn season without disturbing the major crops like wheat, rice and cotton.Sunflower seed contains 40-47% oil and 20-27% protein contents (Saleem et al., 2003).For ideal growth and development, 17 essential elements should be made available to crop plants.If even a single element is deficient in the soil or not well balanced with other nutrients, suppression in growth or even complete inhibition may occur.Micronutrients play an important role in the basic physiological Abstract | Boron deficiency is second most dominant micronutrient problem around the world and it is an important micronutrient required for plant growth and development.So a field study was conducted to explore the potential of boron seed priming on yield and quality of sunflower hybrids at Agronomic Research Farm, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad.The achenes of two different sunflower hybrids i.e.Hysun-33 and FH-331 were subjected to different priming treatments including hydropriming, osmopriming (with 1, 0.1 and 0.01 mM B) using boric acid as a source of B. The experiment was laid out in randomized complete block design with factorial arrangement in triplicate run.Results from the experiment revealed that all the seed treatments significantly improved achene yield, yield attributes and oil contents of sunflower.However, seed priming with 1 mM B solution was the best treatment in improving achene yield and oil contents of sunflower hybrid.While in case of hybrids HYSUN-33 performed significantly better than FH-331 for all studied parameters except for oil contents.However, the interaction between sunflower hybrids and seed priming treatments was non-significant for most of the traits.
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Zero hunger
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2913618340