Coat Colour Grading of the Scots Pine Seeds Collected from Faraway Provenances Reveals a Different Germination Effect

Ivan V Bacherikov,Diana E Raupova,Arthur I Novikov,Evgeniy P Petrishchev,Dmitry A Danilov,Anastasia S Durova,Vladislav D Bragin,Anatoly V Zhigunov

doi:10.3390/seeds1010006

Ivan V Bacherikov, Diana E Raupova + Show 6 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/seeds1010006

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Abstract

The physiological quality of pine seeds is characterized by laboratory and field germination. The present paper is intended for technologists of seed plants and specialists of forest nurseries. It offers a solution to improve the seeding characteristics of small seeds by their pre-sowing preparation. The success of reforestation activities directly depends on the quality of the seeds. The influence of seed sorting by seed size and seed coat colour has been theoretically substantiated and repeatedly tested in practice. However, the response of seeds in germination can vary depending on the year and place of seed collection. Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) seeds were germinated under controlled conditions. Seedlings were obtained from seeds pre-sorted by seed coat colour into white, brown, and black groups, and further divided by size. The results of sorting by the colour of seed coat indicate a different effect of this pre-sowing treatment on the sowing qualities of seeds. Brown seed coat colour showed the highest percentage degree in the seedlots of all provenances. The seeds from the southern provenance with the brown seed coat colour shown the maximum germination. That said, the study raises new questions, indicating more comprehensive research in the future. Does the pattern of germination parameter distribution remain constant for seeds of other harvest years but of the same provenance? Does the variability of the germination factor the result of internal factors of the container location in the greenhouse? Is the genetic diversity of seedlings disturbed by sorting by size?

Highlights

Introduction iationsScots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) has a wide range of habitat [1] and is one of the primary sources of wood raw materials in boreal countries
The results for the studied locations are arranged in order of increasing seed size fractions: 1.2 (Table 3), 1.4 (Tables 4 and 5), 1.7 (Tables 6 and 7), 2.0 (Tables 8 and 9)
Comparing the first and second rotation of Tambov seeds, we can conclude that the average ground germination is 25 ± 5%

Summary

Introduction

Introduction iationsScots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) has a wide range of habitat [1] and is one of the primary sources of wood raw materials in boreal countries. The seeds of Scots pine as integral components of forest reproductive material (FRM) [2] are valuable products, moved by trade operations, as shown in [3], for significant distances, and to some extent determining the rate of forest landscape restoration technology (FLR technology) [4,5]. Quality, defined by appropriate indicators, characterizes any product. Improvement of quality indicators and competitiveness of forest seeds is one of the promising directions of the development of forest seed production. This direction assumes the active interaction of private forest users with forest seed producers, which is consistent with the realities in Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

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