Effect of waterproof treatment of water-saturated seeds on the growth and development of barley

The current work presents a method of pre-sowing preparation of barley seeds, the main attention is paid to the saturation of seeds with moisture, external drying of saturated seeds and their subsequent coating with a moisture-protective microfilm. There has been used a well-known technology of sowing it as a control without pre-moistening. Given that the sowing and cultivation of grain crops has recently been accompanied by hot, dry weather due to a sharp climate change in many regions of the country, the search for methods and techniques to increase yields and improve the quality of agricultural crops, including as well abundant moisture or presowing seed activation technology (priming). Their main disadvantage is a significant moisture loss from a seed after sowing in dried soil. To avoid losing moisture, there has been proposed a method of treating barley seeds before sowing, a significant increase in germination rates and further development of plants after sowing in soil with insufficient moisture. We have analyzed the main phases of growth and development of barley: germination, tillering, budding, heading, flowering, filling and ripening. Observations were carried out during the entire growing season. Special attention has been paid to the most significant phases of ontogeny. We have found out that treated spring barley seeds saturated with water appeared to be taller, but resistant to lodging. The weight of the root system of plants in the experimental plot was 50% higher than in the control one. The largest number of productive stems per 1 m2 (854 pcs./m2) and productive bushiness (2.8) were established in the case with pre-sowing saturation of seeds with water and further application of a protective coating them, which indicates the great responsiveness of spring barley to such treatment.