Seed coating with plant nutrients enhances germination and seedling growth, and promotes total dehydrogenase activity during seed germination in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum)

A lack of nutrients in the seed can be supplemented by seed coating and has the potential to improve germination and seedling growth. In this research, we studied the physiological effect of coating tomato seeds with plant nutrient formulations (PNF) on the dehydrogenase activity during germination and nutrient content of the seedlings. Two tomato seed lots were used, differing in physiological quality: the low quality seed lot had 76% germination and the medium quality seed lot had 87% germination. Seeds were coated with a complete PNF containing N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, B, Mn, Cu and Zn. The PNF was applied at three concentrations, i.e., 1-fold (PF1), 4-fold (PF4) and 16-fold (PF16), and applied with 3% PVP-K90 + 1% PEG 6000 as a polymer. Coating seeds with PNF improved seed germination for both low- and medium-quality seeds. Accelerated ageing tests revealed that PF1 increased germination by 12 and 27% in low- and medium-quality seeds, respectively. All concentrations of PNF increased TDH activity after 48 hours of seed imbibition. Moreover, PF16 decreased root length but increased shoot length. All PNF treatments resulted in higher nutrient content in the seedlings.