EFFECT OF SEED TREATMENT, CONTAINER AND STORAGE PERIOD ON LONGEVITY OF FOXTAIL MILLET

An experiment was conducted in the laboratory of the Department of Seed Science and Technology, UAS, Bangalore to find out the effect of different chemicals, botanicals and different containers on storability of foxtail millet. The study was conducted with two seed dressing chemicals viz., Thiram and Neem seed kernel and three different containers viz., cloth bags, polythene bags (700 gauge) and gunny bag. Highly significant differences were observed for treatment with different seed dressing chemicals and type of container irrespective of per cent germination, seedling length, seedling dry weight, seedling vigour index, electrical conductivity, seed infection and moisture content of stored seeds. The present study on storage revealed that foxtail millet seeds can be stored in polythene bags (700 gauge) after treating with thiram (3g/kg) for extending the storage life