Utilization of Sewage Effluents for Irrigating Crop Plants I – Percentage Seed Germination and Seed Germination Index in Certain Crop Plants

¹Snehlata, ²Nidhi Parashar (Sharma), ³Abha Pathak, ⁴Kapila Saraswat, and ^**5Ravi Sharma

¹Department of Botany K.R. College, Mathura and Scientific Assistant UP Pollution Control Board Regional Office Mathura, India.

²Department of Chemistry K.R. College, Mathura, India.

^{3 & 4}Department of Botany K.R. College, Mathura, India.

⁵Department of Botany, K.R. College, Mathura and Ex-Founder Principal ESS ESS College of Education Dayalbaghg Agra (Dr B. R. Ambedkar University Agra, Formerly Agra University, Agra) UP India.

Accepted June 01, 2018

The present study included physico-chemical analysis of Sewage Effluents (SE) entering the River Yamuna at Mathura UP India with effect of SE water on certain crops of the region to assess its potential utilization for irrigating crop plants for increasing improved and sustainable agricultural production. As such SE was analyzed and its effect in various concentrations (25%, 50%, 75% and 100% along with Controls as distilled water) on seed germination was performed on four crops wheat, barley, mustard and broad bean. Mustard and Broad bean did not show any seed germination at all in the SE treatment concentrations at 24 hours duration. Besides, in Broad bean no germination was observed at 48 hours too in all the SE treatments. Further, it was observed that 75% SE treatment and also 72 hours of germination were found to be quite critical for all the crops. The results in relation to the effect of different concentrations of SE exposure on germination performance measured in terms of Germination Percentage (GP) and Speed of Germination Index (SGI) have shown germination performance as C3 Mustard>C4 Broad bean>C1 Wheat>C2 Barley at critical duration and critical level of 72 hours in 75% SE concentration showing better performance of Mustard and Broad bean than Wheat and Barley.

Key words: Sewage Effluent, Germination Percentage (GP), Speed of Germination Index (SGI), crop varieties.

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