Influence of Some Physicochemical Treatments to Stimulate Seed Germination of Agrimonia eupatoria L. and Clinopodium vulgare L.

Abstract

Dormancy is an inherent limitation on germination that happens across in the life cycle of a plant. The particular goals of this research were to survey the effects of various treatments for improving seed germination of Agrimonia eupatoria and Clinopodium vulgare. These plants are known to have low seed germination. A trial was conducted with 4 replications and 13 treatments in a completely randomized design in the Seed Laboratory of Agriculture Faculty of Shirvan. The seeds were treated with three concentrations of gibberellic acid (100, 500 and 1000 ppm), three periods of dry cold stratification (10, 20 and 30 days at 2 °C), three periods of wet cold stratification (10, 20 and 30 days at 2 °C), sulphuric acid (98%) for 5 minutes, potassium nitrate (0.2%), thiourea 1 molar and distilled water as control. The seeds were monitored daily in Petri dishes for 22 days. The findings suggested that the effect of different treatments on A. eupatoria and C. vulgare seeds germination percentage were significantly (p<0.01) influenced. Treatments of dry cold stratification (10 and 20 days) and wet cold stratification (10 days) have the highest effect on seeds germination percentage and germination rate of A. eupatoria. For C. vulgare seeds, the highest germination percentage and germination rate was found when exposed to dry and wet cold stratification (30 days) treatments. The maximum and minimum vigor indices in A. eupatoria were seen under treatment of dry cold stratification for 30 days (20.5) and 100 ppm gibberellic acid (4.99), and were also seen in C. vulgare under treatment of potassium nitrate (11.39) and GA3 (100 ppm). The findings also revealed that sulphuric acid, potassium nitrate and thiourea on A. eupatoria and thiourea on C. vulgare did not seed germination.

Keywords

• cold stratification
• physiological dormancy
• agrimonia eupatoria
• clinopodium vulgare