Effect of Purine and Pyrimidine Derivatives on the Photoperiodically Induced Germination of Eragrostis seeds

Abstract

As already reported in the previous papersl. ~~ , the germination of seed in Eragrostis ferruginea is induced by the sequence of inductive dark followed by inductive light treatments, and moreover it is inhibited or promoted by the red light applied at different stages in germination process. In experiments preliminarily made by the present authors, it was observed that the germination of seed is also affected by kinetin (6-f urf uryl-aminopurine). According to other workers3' 4) , the presence of kinetin remarkably enhanced the germination of some light-sensitive seeds when they were subjected to short exposure to red light, the exposure alone being insufficient for the promotion of germination. Thus, it is surmized that kinetin would have some additional effects on the action of red light for germination of Eragrostis seed. In plant physiological sense, no profound role of kinetin has been shown inn detail, and hence, interdependence between kinetin and red light in seed germinationn remains quite obscure. The present experiment has been planned in order to throw some light on this interesting problem by the use of several Purine and pyrimidine derivatives in germination of Eragrostis seeds.