This experiment was conducted on wild vegetables; Gondalbi (Cirsium setidens), Deoduck (Codonopsis lanceolata Trautv.), and Jandae (Adenophora triphylla var. Joponica Hara) seed to study whether priming with deep sea water results in enhancement of seed germination and identify the optimum concentration of the priming solution, and duration of priming. Seeds were primed with 5 various concentrations (5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 30%) of deep sea water (DSW) in 12 hours, 24 hours, and 48 hours at 24℃. Since Jandae had seed dormancy, it was kept for four weeks in refrigerator at 2℃ after priming treatment. In Deoduck, 5 percentage DSW priming significantly improved the early germination percentage, radicle length, and plumule emergence percentage. Among the priming period of treatments, 24 hours priming showed better performance in this treatment whereas, in Jandae, 12 hours priming with 10 percentages DSW significantly improved the germination percentage and germination rate. This treatment had increased the final germination percentage by 54%, 15% and 40% compared with control, plain water and KNO3 priming respectively. But in Gondalbi, priming did not improve the germination of seed. However, among the priming treatments, 12 hours priming with 3% KNO3 and 20% DSW gave better performance. In both the wild vegetables; Deoduck and Jandae, priming in deep sea water had improved the germination percentage and germination rate as compare to plain water, KNO3, and without priming treatment. Hence the best seed priming treatment on Deoduck and Jandae are 24 hours with 5% DSW and 12 hours with 10% DSW respectively.

• Won-Hee Kang
• Surendra Lal Shrestha
• Byeong-Sung Yoon