Abstract

A field experiment was conducted during Kharif, 2016 at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore to study the growth and yield parameters influenced by seed priming. The proso millet and barnyard millet seeds were imposed with priming treatments and evaluated under field conditions. The results of the field experiment revealed that among the priming treatments Pseudomonas fluorescens 20% recorded significantly higher growth parameters such as field emergence, plant height, chlorophyll content, net assimilation rate, dry matter efficiency, earliness in days to booting, days to first flowering and days to 50 per cent flowering. The yield parameters like panicle weight/plant, panicle to seed recovery percentage, seed yield/plant, seed yield/plot and 1000 seed weight was higher with Pseudomonas fluorescens 20% primed seeds compared to other treatments. Thus, the present study indicates that seed priming with Pseudomonas fluorescens 20% have the potential in enhancing growth and yield parameters in proso millet and barnyard millet.