Exogenous melatonin improves seed germination and seedling growth in greengram under drought stress

Drought stress diminishes seedling germination and vigor by reducing water uptake, inhibiting plant growth development. Most of the pulse growing areas are under rainfed ecosystems, which significantly reduces crop yield. Melatonin, a growth-regulating compound, is widely used to mitigate negative effects abiotic stresses in pulses. With this background, laboratory experiment was conducted standardize optimum melatonin concentration for seed treatment foliar application greengram, minimize ill drought stress. The arranged completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications each treatment. treatments consisted soaking seeds different concentrations, viz., 20, 40, 60, 80 100 μM. Seeds were sown perti dishes imposed using poly ethylene glycol 6000 (PEG 6000) @ - 0.4 MPa, plates maintained at room temperature (24-30 °C). After seedlings emerged, various parameters like percentage, shoot length, root index, promptness tolerance fresh dry weight seedlings, height index length recorded. experimental results showed that reduced percentage other growth-related greengram compared treatments. Among treatments, treated μM recorded highest (99.67 %), (98.80), vigour (1631.68), (8.9 cm 7.5 cm), (3.249 0.147 mg seedling-1) PEG induced condition.