EFFEECT OF PRETREATMENTS ONMYRICA ESCULENTAD.DON (KAPHAL) SEED GERMINATION AND SEEDLING PERFOMANCE

SUMMARY Seeds of M. esculenta exhibit dormancy that hampers, rapid and uniform germination. To overcome this dormancy, seeds of this species were pretreated with mechanical scarification by slicing off the end of the seed, soaking in sulphuric acid for 4, 8 and 12 minutes and soaking in hot water for 24, 48 and 72 hours. Some scarified seeds were treated with two concentrations of GA3: 50 and 100 ppm. All pretreatments improved the germination capacity of seeds, the highest being after mechanical scarification with soaking in GA3 100 ppm (85.00%); next highest germination was with the sulphuric acid and hot water soaking treatments. The maximum survival percent (60.00%) of seedling was associated with 48 hrs hot water soaking. The maximum shoot length (9.50 cm) occurred with GA3 50 ppm treatment of scarified seeds, whereas maximum root length (14.68 cm), number of leaves (11.50), shoot dry weight (0.19 g) and root dry weight (0.26 g) were found with GA3 100 ppm. Soaking in hot water for 48 hours is the treatment recommended as being cheap and easy to apply as scarification results in a high level of damage to the seeds.