Pretreatments Comparison of Seed Germination of Heracleum candicans Wall

Abstract

Background and Objective: Heracleum candicans belongs to the family apiaceae. In Kashmir Himalaya, this plant grows at an altitude of 1700-5000 masl. The present study was carried out to enhance seed germination using different physical, chemical and hormonal treatments. Materials and Methods: For germination studies, seeds were subjected to different physical, chemical and hormonal treatments. Seeds were surface sterilised with 2% aqueous sodium hypochlorite (Hi-Media) for 5-10 min. The disinfected seeds were placed in sterilized Petri plates containing sterilized absorbent cotton moistened with 10 mL of treatment solution. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS (Version 22.0) statistical software and the results were examined according to Tukey's test. Different letters on the values indicate that the means are significantly (p<0.05) different. Results: Among the physical treatments, wet chilling at 4EC for 20 days proved to be most effective for seed germination. Among the three chemical treatments used, sodium hypochlorite treatment proved to be effective. Conclusion: Among the two hormonal treatments used, kinetin showed effectiveness in breaking seed dormancy as compared with GA 3 .