Technical Report

By

Ahmad Farhan
B.Sc. (BZU)
2018-ag-5339

Advised by

Dr. Mariam Munir

Master of Science
In
Chemistry

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY

SUB-CAMPUS BUREWALA-VEHARI
UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE,
FAISALABAD, PAKISTAN
2020
SIGNATURE

Student ____________________________

(Ahmad Farhan)

EVALUATION COMMITTEE

1. Principal ___________________________

(Dr. Sajid Mehmood)

2. Advisor ____________________________

(Dr. Mariam Munir)

3. Principal’s Nominee ____________________________

 Dedication
This technical report will be incomplete
Without a mention of the
Support given to me by my
“PARENTS”
To whom this technical report is dedicated.
They are my own
“Soul out of my soul”
Who kept my spirits up when the muses failed me
Without them lifting me up
When this technical report seemed interminable,
I doubt it shout ever have been completed
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I indebted to Almighty Allah. the propitious, the benevolent and sovereign whose blessing and
glory flourished my thoughts and thrive my ambitions, giving me talented teachers, affectionate
parents, sweet brothers and family members and unique friends. Trembling lips and wet eyes
praise for Holy Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W) for enlightening our conscience with essence of
faith in Almighty Allah, converging all His kindness and mercy upon him.
I have not appreciating words to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor. Dr. Mariam
Munir, Lecturer, UAF Sub-campus Burewala, who, in spite of his busiest schedule, acted as a
real spiritual teacher and provided her dexterous guidance and valuable suggestions through
my research efforts and write up of this manuscript. Under his able guidance, skillful
suggestions, constructive criticism and kind supervision this work was converted into a novel
write up getting its present shape.
I am grateful to respectable members of supervisors committee,
Chapter 1:
INTRODUCTION
Radish (Raphanus sativus) belongs to the family of Brassicaceae which is grown and eaten
throughout the world, especially in East Asia. R. Sativus is ecologically classified into five
varieties e.g. European small radish, Asian big radish, Black radish, Oil radish, Rat's tail radish
(Banga 1976; Hida 1990; Kumazawa 1965). Radish plants are fast-growing winter season
vegetable. Radish plants are very hardy and suffer from very few pest and diseases.Sometimes
it is affected by mosaic and rust diseases. Radish plants require full sunlight for its
growth(Agrihortico 2019) It has ability to grow in different type of soil. Radish plants require an
ideal soil with Ph 6.5 to 8.5. As radish plants grow quickly, soil must be fertile with good amount
of organic content and have good water holding capacity for growth of radish
plant(Beattie,James H 1882; Beattie W.R 1870).Small radish needs sowing dept of 1cm to 1.5
cm and for the growth of large radish dept requires is 2cm to 4cm (Peterson1999).It is thought
to be hardy and optimum temperature for its growth is 15 - 20°C(Gunay 2005). Radish seeds
germinates in 3-4 days temperature of soil ranges between 18 - 29°C. The good quality of tuber
is obtained under moderate day length with temperature of air ranges about 10 to
18°C(Seaman 2013). During the growing period, the crop needs to be thinned and weeds
controlled and irrigation may be requiredBeattie,James H 1882; Beattie W.R 1870).The radish
can be stored for three to four days after harvesting at normal room temperature(25°C) but it
can be stored about 2 months with relative temperature of 0°C and humidity of 90 to
95%(Gopalakrishnan T. P 2007).A radish crop removes from soil 120kg of nitrogen, 100kg of
potash and 65kg of phosphate for 20 ton per hectare production (Agrihortico 2019). It is
healthiest vegetable and may improve some health conditions. It contains plenty amount of
vitamin C. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that helps fights against free radicals in your body and
prevent cell damage due to senile conditions, an unhealthy lifestyle, and environmental toxins.
Vitamin C also plays a key role in collagen production, which supports healthy skin and blood
vessels. Aslo, it contains small amounts of potassium, folate, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-6, zinc,
copper, sodium, calcium vitamin K and manganese (Annette McDermott;2016).100 gram raw
radish has a nutrition value as follows : calories (16),vitamin C (18%), carbohydrates (3%), water
(95%), protein (1%) and has negligible fat(USDA 2019). The radish has many useful agriculture
traits. These include cytoplasmic male (Ogura 1968; Yamagishi and Terachi 1996; Tanaka et al
2012), resistance to pod shattering (Agnihotri et al. 1990), tolerance to saline soil (Warwick
1993) and resistant to blackleg (Salisbury 1987), beet cyst nematode (Lelivelt and Krens 1992;
Lelivelt et al. 1993). Therefore, radish is significant genetic source for breeding in mustard
family.
Water stress is a major factor limiting plant growth and performance, which frequently is
exacerbated by abiotic stress like salinity.Water stress initially reduces photosynthetic activity
by decreasing leaf area and photosynthetic rate per unit leaf area (Basu et al., 2016).Soil
salinity is a big production problem for vegatable crop.Major processes like growth, yield,
photosynthesis, protein synthesis and lipid metabolism are affected by salt stress(Parida and
Das 2005). High concentration of harmful salts within cells of plant cause ionic stress and salt
causes osmotic stress by limiting absorption of water from the soil(Kohler et al. 2009).Salinity
was shown to decrease the uptake of Calcium and potassium which causes nutrients imbalance
while salinity showed increased uptake of sodium(Neel et al. 2002). There are two major
aspects with limit the plant growth in soil which contains water: one is osmotic effect of salinity
which lower the growth by decreasing the ability to take up water and other is ion-excess
effect of salinity in which further growth maybe reduced by large amounts of salt entering the
transpiration stream which damage cells in transpiring leabes (Munns et al. 2006).Greenway
and Munns (1980) suggested that in expended leaves major factor is execess of ions while in
expended tissues water stress is the determining feature. The decrease in productivity in
plants is due to excess salinity which is associated with reduction in
photosynthesis(Long&Baker, 1986).Reduction in photosynthesis under salinity stress is due
decrease in chlorophyll. Salinity reduces growth in radish (Raphanus sativus) at high salt level
could be considered a reduction cause in leaf area expansion and lower the light interception
area (Marcelis&Hooijdonk, 1999).It has been reported that radish is salt sensitive crop(Osawa,
1965 and Smith, 1971).Radish crop yield is moderately sensitive to salinity (Maas and Hoffman,
1977) while Sonneveld(1988) reported a low sensitivity. Salinity cause differentiation in radish
seedlings and lack of coordination between cellular expansion; as salinity increased, structural
and cellular modifications were apparent in the form of wall thickening and metabolic
aggregates in parenchyma cells(Scialabba and Melati, 1990).Different types of radish has
different salinity tolerance level (Waisel and Breckle, 1987).High level of salt concentration in
soil reduces germination rate and germination percentage. Low concentration of salinity
affectthe germination rate but not the total percentage of seed germination. In general, salinity
affects the biochemistry and physiological of plants (Cuartero et al. 2005).

Several priming techniques are used to invigorate seeds to develop tolerance in plants. To
develop tolerance against abiotic stress like salinity, drought and heat. These are being used to
improve seed germination under both optimal and adverse conditions (Jisha et al., 2013).The
positive effects of priming may be clearer under unfavorable conditions than favorable (Parera
and Cantliffe, 1994; Demir and Mavi, 2004; Ashraf and Foolad, 2005; Chen, 2011)
Seed priming is a low-cost technique of soaking seeds in a solution containing Zn (or other
micronutrient) for a specified time after which the seeds are redried and sown (Rehman et al.,
2012).). The positive effects of seed priming under salinity conditions/stress have been
reported in many crops, such as tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) (Pradhan et al., 2014), hot
pepper (Capsicum annuum var. acuminatum L.) (Khan et al., 2009a, 2009b), lettuce (Lactuca
sativa L.) (Nasri et al., 2011), maize (Zea mays L.) (Abraha and
Yohannes, 2013; Tabatabaei, 2014), okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.) (Dkhil et al., 2014), pea
(Pisum sativum L.) (Naz et al., 2014), pepper (Capsicum annuum L.) (Aloui et al., 2014), milk
thistle (Silybum marianum L.) (Zavariyan et al., 2015) and soybean (Glycine max L.) (Miladinov
et al., 2015).