Abstract

Treating seeds in nutrients like phosphate and magnesium before sowing as an improved technique in the cultivation of field crops for increasing erop production has been under experimentation in the country and elsewhere and the results were found to be promising. The investigation was undertaken in order to test whether the chemicals like sodium bicarbo- nate of different concentrations can improve the yield of paddy if the seeds are soaked before sowing. Previous experiments conducted at Paddy Breeding Station, Coimbatore (1949-'51) by soaking seed in 10 and 20 per cent of potassium metaphosphate and 13 per cent of magnesium chloride and magnesium sulphate showed 10-13 per cent increase in yield in the case of potassium metaphosphate. Narayanan and Gopalakrislınan (1949) conducted pot culture experiments with rice seed, and obtained 21.1 per cent and 38.8 per cent increase in grain yield by soaking seed in 10 and 20 per cent solution of K, PO, respectively and 10.9 per cent increase with 20 per cent solution of K, HPO,. Ghose et al (1956) have reported that soaking rice sced in 10 and 20 per cent solution of K, HPO, gave 8 to 9 per cent increase in yield.

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