Background: Drought stress poses a significant challenge to agricultural productivity, particularly in regions with limited water availability. Maize, a staple crop worldwide, is highly susceptible to drought stress, leading to reduced seed germination, stunted growth and ultimately diminished yields. Addressing this issue, in this study various phytohormones and polyamines were used as priming agents for seeds to evaluate its performance to mitigate drought stress in maize seed germination and vigour. It plays crucial roles in regulating plant growth and development, as well as responses to various environmental stresses, including drought. These hormones modulate physiological and biochemical processes, leading to adaptive changes that helps maize plants to cope with water scarcity. Methods: The experiment was conducted by exposing maize seeds primed with different phytohormones and polyamines in optimum along with non primed seeds (control) to various levels of PEG concentration ranging from -0.2 MPa to -1.0 MPa for creating drought stress. Primed seeds subjected to a germination test. The seedling growth parameters and seed vigour were evaluated to analyse better performing seed priming treatment to mitigate drought stress. Result: From the experiment it is concluded that increase in concentration of PEG (from -0.2 Mpa to -1.0 MPa) decreased the seed germination and seed vigour traits in maize. Among seed priming treatments, seeds primed with melatonin 150 µM showed greater performance seedling vigour and its related traits even under water deficit stress condition. In conclusion, seed priming with melatonin exhibited superior efficacy in mitigating drought stress in maize. This finding highlights the potential of melatonin as a promising seed priming agent for enhancing drought tolerance in maize seeds. As seed priming is simple, easy and cost effective method, farmers can use this technology as one of their practice to eliminate the effect of drought stress in maize crop.

Background: The goal of the current study was to ascertain how well oil cake extracts functioned as nutrient source and seed priming agent for groundnut seeds in order to improve their seed quality attributes. Experiments were conducted on cv. CO 7 variety of groundnut to determine the best oil cake extracts and concentrations for seed priming. Methods: For the experiment, seed priming agents were groundnut, sesame, coconut, cotton and neem extracts from oil cakes. The various concentrations of each oil cake extract, namely 5, 10, 15 and 20%, were made and used to treat seeds with oil cake extracts at their ideal concentration. Result: The seeds pre-treated with oil cake extracts had improved seed quality, including faster germination, higher germination rates, the longest root and shoot lengths, the highest levels of dry matter production and a higher vigour index. The most effective groundnut seed priming agent was found to be 20% groundnut oil cake extract. Hence, the groundnut oil cake produced as a farm byproduct can be successfully used to increase the vigour of the seedlings, simplifying the recycling of agricultural products.