Screening of Sesbania accessions based on seed germination and seedling biomass

Seedling emergence and germination percentage of seeds play a vital role for optimum plant population and biomass yield maximization of a crop in the field. An experiment was carried out at Plant Systematics Laboratory of the Department of Crop Botany, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, during the month of April to May 2016 for the screening of Sesbania accessions based on seed germination, vigour index and initial biomass yield. The experiment was laid out in a completely randomized design with four replications. One hundred and ten Sesbania accessions were used as experimental materials. Four hundred healthy seeds, 100 seeds as one replication, of each accession were spread uniformly on containers for the germination test. Cumulative germination percentage of seeds was counted daily up to 10 days. After 10 days, 40 seedlings (10 from each replication) were taken from each accession and measured. Quantitative descriptors viz. emergence (%) and germination (%) of seeds, vigour index, shoot length, root length, base diameter and biomass yield, varied significantly. Based on quantitative descriptors, Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering (AHC) and Principal Component analyses (PCA) were conducted. In PCA, the first three principal components explained 82.64% of the total variations. In AHC, three individual clusters were developed and six accessions always remained in the same cluster. These six accessions could belong to same species. Based on their seed germination and initial seedling growth, five accessions performed better and selected for further study. Field trials of these accessions are needed to recommend one or more accessions as cultivar(s)