author(s)
Anuradha and Ashish Tejasvi

abstract
Crop plants are\r\nnegatively affected by heavy metals. Chromium is also a heavy metal that harms\r\ncrops. This study aims to examine the effects of several chromium treatments on\r\nthe germination and physiological processes of barley seedlings. A Petri\r\nculture experiment was performed to accomplish this purpose. In this\r\nexperiment, sterilized barley seeds were sown in Petri dishes lined with\r\nWhatman No. 1 filter paper in triplicate. Filter papers were wetted with four\r\nconcentrations of chromium (25, 50, 75, and 100 µM), and distilled water was\r\nused as a control (0 µM) treatment. The seedlings were measured on the\r\nfourteenth day. Resulted, various Cr treatments insignificantly decreased the\r\ngermination percentage (GP) and speed of germination index (SGI). The number of\r\nlateral roots was reduced significantly by all Cr treatments. Treatments with\r\nCr decreased the growth of the seedling and biomass (fresh and dry) of\r\nseedlings. Higher treatments (75 and 100 µM) resulted in significant decreases\r\nin root length, and the treatments with 50, 75, and 100 µM of Cr caused\r\nsignificant reductions in shoot length and total seedling length. All chromium\r\ntreatments significantly decreased the fresh weight of root, shoot, and total\r\nseedlings. Higher Cr treatments (50, 75, and 100 µM) caused significant\r\nreductions in root dry weight. Several chromium treatments caused significant\r\ndecreases in shoot and total seedling dry weight. Different Cr treatments\r\ndiminished the seedling vigor index (SVI) and tolerance index (TI). By\r\nincreasing the chromium treatments, the percentage difference from the control\r\n(% DFC) for germination and the percentage of phytotoxicity (PP) were found to\r\nincrease.