Impacts of Cadmium and Manganese on in Vitro Seed Germination and Seedling Growth of Horsegram

Heavy metal stress is one of the key factors for crop yield along with other abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, extreme temperature and light. Due to natural and anthropogenic activities heavy metal pollution is increasing daily. Hence, it is must to know the effects of heavy metals in depth on crop growth and development ultimately yield levels. In the present work we assessed the impacts of cadmium (Cd) and manganese (Mn) on seed growth of important food crop horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum) under in vitro conditions. We observed the toxic effect of cadmium on horse gram seed germination and in contrast manganese promoted the germination. To know further details into the differences in seedling growth pattern, we estimated the shoot and root lengths of both heavy metal treated seedlings along with controls. Both the shoot and root lengths were reduced in high concentrations of cadmium. At the same time high concentration of manganese also exhibited decreased root lengths and we got mixed results with shoot lengths in manganese treatments. Moreover, we compared the effects of both the elements and possible reason for modifications in growth has been discussed. This work may be helpful to know the insights of susceptibility/resistance of crop growth under these heavy metal stresses.