Seedling production of Physalis peruviana from osmoprimed seeds under irrigation water salinity

Abstract

Salinity limits seed germination and seedling growth by inducing osmotic and oxidative stress. However, seed osmoconditioning is a strategy aimed at mitigating these adverse effects. Physalis peruviana is a crop with high economic value, but management strategies to optimize seedling establishment are still limited. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of osmotic conditioning of P. peruviana seeds on seedling production under salt stress. The experiment was conducted in a controlled environment at the Federal University of Campina Grande, located at the Center for Food Science and Technology in Pombal, Paraíba, Brazil. A randomized block design was used in a 2 × 4 factorial arrangement: first factor consisted of osmoprimed and non-osmoprimed seeds, and the second factor included four levels of electrical conductivity of irrigation water (ECw – 0.3, 1.2, 2.1, and 3.0 dS m^-1), with four replicates. The osmoprimed seeds were soaked in a PEG 6000 solution at -0.4 MPa. ECw levels negatively affected the emergence, growth, physiology, biomass, and quality of P. peruviana seedlings. Osmopriming the seeds with PEG 6000 solution promoted greater growth compared to non-osmoprimed seeds. While the osmopriming technique did not completely prevent the negative effects of salinity in the irrigation water, it did mitigate the detrimental impact on seedling emergence and leaf expansion in P. peruviana.