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ABSTRACT
Salinity is a major constraint hampering germination and early seedling growth, especially in aged seed lots. Any rejuvenation treatment improving salt resistance at these crucial developmental stages will be of special interest. Two sets of experiments were performed in Brassica napus to precise the impact of vermicompost leachate (VCL) on seed germination in the presence of NaCl and to analyze its putative interest as seed priming agent before NaCl exposure. Two seed lots were used: one old seed lot (cv. Libomir) and a recent one (cv. Harry). VCL increased the germination percentage of aged seeds in the absence of NaCl and increased seedling length in both cultivars. VCL had only a minor impact when directly added to the NaCl-containing germinating solution. In contrast, priming with VCL strongly improved subsequent germination in the presence of NaCl in relation to a more efficient management of oxidative stress in both cultivars. The improvement of salinity resistance provided by VCL priming was not due to modification in ion or proline content. It is concluded that VCL may act as a rejuvenation agent invigoring old seed lots and as an efficient priming agent for improvement of salinity resistance at the germination stage. Valuable properties of VCL are discussed in relation to the simultaneous presence of several protecting compounds.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Dr Vaclav Motyka and Dr Petre Dobrev (Institute of Experimental Botany, Prague, Czech Republic) for their valuable help in phytohormonal analysis of VCL, Dr M. Garnczarska and L. Wojtyla (Adam University, Poland), Dr P. Benincasa (University of Perugia) and Mr S. Krauft for kindly providing the seeds.
Supplementary material
Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.
