Germination performance of some legume crops under varying soil water available capacities

A laboratory attempt was made to evaluate germination performances of three lentil cultivars namely Nineveh, Adlib and Baraka, besides Common Vetch and Mungbeans under varying soil water availabilities. Soils were moistened to 100, 75, 50 and 25% of its water available capacity and were used as germinating media. Germinating seeds in 0% soil AWC depletion was surpassed over that of 25, 50 and 75% depletion of AWC in terms of final germination percentage (2.8, 13.3, 53.2%, respectively), radical length (16.6, 48 and 129.1 %, respectively), plumule length (27.5, 34.8 and 128 %, respectively). This treatment also revealed substantial reductions in days required for peak germination (36, 50.8 and 63.9, respectively) and days required for first emergence (5.6, 50 and 75%, respectively). Thus, treatments can be arranged according to their adversities as below: 75%>50%>25%>0% depletion out of soil AWC. Mungbean cultivar exceeded Nineveh, Adlib, Baraka and Common Vetch in terms of germination rate (59, 53.6, 40.4 and 124.1%, respectively), Furthermore, it profoundly shortened the days required for peak germination (34.6, 40.4, 19.2 and 51.9%, respectively), days for first emergence (110, 105, 100 and 140%, respectively) and radical: plumule lengths ratio (33.9, 9.3, 21.4 and 33.9%, respectively).Therefore, detected cultivars can be arranged as follow: Mungbean> Baraka> Adlib> Nineveh> Common Vetch. The most effective dual interaction was Mungbean seeds germinated under field capacity. It manifested the best values in terms of final germination rate (100%), germination time (1day), and germination rate (100), plumule length (93.75 mm). It had reduced days required for peak germination (1), days for first emergence (1). Exposing germinated seeds to water stress profoundly altered the differentiation of root components, particularly vessels width and numbers.