Abstract
The non-availability of productive seedling rootstocks in nurseries and its dissemination within the area has been one of main
constraints for collapse of the mango industry. In this regard container based experiment was conducted in 2015-2016. The
seeds of mango fruits were obtained and divided into two lots i.e. corticated and decorticated followed by seed priming. The
distilled water for hydropriming, gibberellic acid (GA3) for hormonal and solo plant (NPK fertilizer) for nutripriming was
used for seed priming. The unprimed seeds were treated as control. The soil had EC of (0.38 dSm-1
), pH (7.46), organic
matter (0.89%), nitrogen (0.053 mg kg-1
), phosphorus (5.61 mg Kg-1
), potassium (209 mg Kg-1
), calcium (2713 mg Kg-1
) and
magnesium (1243 mg Kg-1
). The data reveals that maximum mean seed germination (77.42%) was observed in 18.50 days in
response to the hormonal primed seeds. Further hormonal primed seeds produced better results for germination index
(11.65%), seedling vigor index (833.1), seedling height (33.82 cm) and stem diameter (9.66 mm) and chlorophyll content
(48.18 rg) while leaf nitrogen (1.16%), phosphorus (0.14%), potassium (0.61%), calcium (1.89%) and magnesium (0.27%)
content was observed maximum in response to the nutripriming. To compare corticated and decorticated seeds, decorticated
seeds produced better results for seed germination (76.81%), germination index (11.97), seedling vigor index (3462.9),
nitrogen (1.11%), phosphorus (0.14%), potassium (0.58%), calcium (1.81%) and magnesium (0.26%). It is concluded that
decorticated seeds when primed with GA3 produced better results for germination and seedling growth while nutrient content
was well above or close the critical limits in nutriprimed seeds. This study suggests that the priming of the decorticated
mango seeds is suitable to produce productive seedling rootstocks