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Table 3 : GROWTH PERFORMANCE OF JOWAR, SORGHUM VULGARE PERS. VAR. CSH-1, 30 DAYS AFTER A 3 h FUMIGATION BY 009 ppm SO2 CONCENTRATION.

Dry Weighting
  Stage of growth SS  YPS   MPS
   Treated  0.347 0.994  3.543
Control  0.788 2.003 6.010
 Percentage loss in growth  56 51.4 40.1

Values are the mean of 5 replicates

When the Jowar plants were allowed to grow for 30 days after a 3 h fumigation by SO2 at 0.09 ppm concentration and studied for their growth performance as indicated by the dry matter yields of shoots, it was noticed that the growth was affected to a maximum in plants fumigated at seedling stage (Table 3), as the dry matter yield of such plants was 0.347 g as against 0.788 g in the controls.

Those fumigated at young plant stage showed a reduction of 51.4 per cent as compared to the control, whereas plants fumigated at mature plant stage had shown 40.1 per cent. This indicated that a 30 days period was not sufficient to recover from the damage caused by SO2 exposure.

Table 4 : EFFECT OF A 3 h FUMIGATION OF JOWAR, SORGHUM VULGARE PERS. VAR. CSH—1 BY 0 09 ppm CONCENTRATION OF SO2 ON YIELD AND ON THE LENGTH OF INFLORESCENECE.

   Root Oven dry weight  Shoot Ovendry weight    Length of
  inflore­scence n cm.
Stage of growth at fumigation SS YPS MPS SS YPS MPS
 SS YPS MPS
Treated 0.737 0.624 0.821 3.428 2.951 3.543 12.5 11.0 12.0
Control -1.359 ± 0.238- -6.118 ± 0.253-- --13.6 ± 0.95—-
Percentage loss 45.8 54.1 39.6 44.0 51.8 42.1 8.1 19.2 11.8

Values are the mean of 5 replicates.

At the time of harvest the dry matter production by the plants fumigated only once in their life at seedling stage, young plant stage or mature plant stage was studied. All the plants were harvested on the same day i.e. 100th from sowing. Results are presented in Table 4. It was observed that the plants fumigated at the seedling stage and mature plant stage suffered less in terms of dry matter yields, as well as the length of their inflorescences, as compared to those fumigated at young plant stage.

This would mean that the plants fumigated at seedling stage could recover partially from the damage caused by S02 fumigation during the rest of the growth period. The plants fumigated at mature plant stage showed some resistance as indicated by comparatively less depletion in organic matter. The possibility is that they had already passed the critical stage of life and had started distributing the food resources towards the growing zone of inflorescence. The maximum damage seen in plants fumigated at young plant stage may be due to less time for the plants to recover before the inflorescence formation and this they had to do with depleted food resources. This affected both, the dry matter production of plants as well as the reproductive growth, as shown by lower dry weights of plants and smaller inflorescences. It appears from the above that the Jowar plants are very sensitive.


CONCLUSION
SO2 at the seedling stage and with the growth of plants, the resistance capacity progressively improves. A period of one month is found to be inadequate for a plant to recover completely from the damage it suffers due to SO2. Exposure to the pollutant at a stage of incomplete vegetative growth harms the reproductive growth to a high degree.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The above work was supported financially by U.G.C., New Delhi. The authors are thankful to Prof. B. C. Haldar, Director, and Dr. V. D. Tilak, Head of the Department of Botany, The Institute of Science, Bombay-32 for encouragement.

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