Abstract Drought stress is one of the most important environmental factors in reduction of growth, development and production of plants. Germination of each seed is considered as one of the first and most fundamental life stages of a plant so that, the success in growth and yield production is also depending on this stage. To study the effect of PEG stress on germination and early seedling stages on maize, an experiment were laid out at laboratory conditions of Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding SKUAST-K FoA/RRS Wadura. This investigation was performed as factorial experiment under Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. Polyethylene glycol stress induced in laboratory caused progressive decline in both the parameters across all genotypes with increase in Polyethylene glycol from 0-20% and both the parameters (length of radical and root biomass) had highest value under control.