~ 1825 ~ International Journal of Chemical Studies 2017; 5(4): 1825-1830 P-ISSN: 2349–8528 E-ISSN: 2321–4902 IJCS 2017; 5(4): 1825-1830 © 2017 IJCS Received: 18-05-2017 Accepted: 20-06-2017 Laxmi Bhimappa Kotambari Department of Plant Physiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India AS Gontia1 Department of Plant Physiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India Anubha Department of Plant Physiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India Amit Jha Department of Agronomy Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India Ompal Singh Department of Plant Physiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India Correspondence Laxmi Bhimappa Kotambari Department of Plant Physiology, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Jabalpur (MP) India Influence of Seed Priming on Phenophases, Morpho-physiological traits, Growth and Biophysical traits of Maize Laxmi Bhimappa Kotambari, AS Gontia, Anubha Upadhyaya, Amit Jha and Ompal Singh Abstract Objective of this investigation is to study the influence of seed priming treatments on phenophases, growth. morphophysiological and biophysical traits in maize (Zea mays L.). The experiment was carried out during kharif 2016 -17 at research farm JNKVV, Jabalpur (MP) which was laid out in a randomized block design replicated thrice. The treatments comprised of nine seed priming treatments in maize cv, African tall viz., water, ZnSO4 @ 0.5%, KNO3 @ 0.5% & KH2PO4 @ 0.5% for 6 and 12 hrs and control which were assessed for growth and biophysical traits. The seed priming treatments showed variable response for most of the traits. Water primed treatments indicated the highest values for phenophases, morphophysiological and biophysical traits ie., V8 (52 days), V9 (57.7 days), R5 (100.7 days), R6 (114 days), dry matter accumulation (0.92g at 20 DAS and 154.62g at 114 DAS), leaf area index(1.451), leaf area duration (34816 cm 2 .days), CGR (9.18g cm -2 day -1 ), RGR (0.052 g g -1 day -1 ,cholorophyll index (17.20),carboxylation efficiency (0.112 mol m -2 s -1 (molm -1 ) -1 ), net photosynthesis (23.91 mol m -2 s - 1) ) and quantum efficiency (0.0193). ZnSO4 primed for 12 hrs had highest stomatal conductance (0.038) and transpiration rate (2.127). KH2PO4 primed for 12 hrs - mesophyll efficiency (4914.4).. Keywords: Maize, LAI, LAD, CGR, RGR, photosynthesis, seed priming Introduction Maize (Zea mays L.) is one of the most important cereal crops in the world and is third important position in India after rice and wheat with enormous role in food and nutritional security. Maize is having special significance because in addition to staple food for human being and quality feed for animal. It serves as a basic raw material as an ingredient to thousands of industrial products that include starch, oil, protein, alcoholic beverages, food sweetners, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, film, textile, gum, package and paper industries etc. Seed priming, a pre-sowing partial hydration of seeds, is often used to improve crop performance (Ashraf and Foolad, 2005) [2] . Seed priming resulted in earlier emergence of seedlings by 1-3 days and significantly increased plant stand and initial growth vigour (Singh et al., 2015) [5] . Increase in LAI stay-green and maintain photosynthesis of green leaves during R1 stage (Tollenaar et al., 2004) [7] . Though a few physiological investigations have been carried out to evaluate the performance of maize under various seed priming methods, detailed investigations are needed to identify phenophases, morphophysical and biophysical traits influencing productivity along with the constraints of productivity under drought conditions. Material and methods The present investigation was carried out during the Kharif 2016. The experiment was carried out at Research Farm, AICRP on FORAGE CROPS, Department of Agronomy, JNKVV, Jabalpur (M.P.). The experiment conducted in randomized block design with three replications having 9 treatments. The observations were recorded on five randomly selected plants from each plot and from each replication for the desired characters. Results and discussions It has been observed (Table 1) that treatment water primed for 12 hours had reached VE (4.67), V2 (11.0), V6 (30.33) and V8 (50.67) early but to attain V1 (8.33), V3 (13.0) stages KH2PO4 primed for 12 hours acquired minimum time.