Different Effects of Tomato Leaf Extract on Seed Germination

Abstract

Pre-germination, osmotic seed applications induce germination improvement. Although they are made with traditional and chemical methods, they have recently become alternative nature-friendly, clean, inexpensive and most importantly plant-based (essential oils, medicinal plant extracts, propolis (bee gum), seeweed) applications. By these treatments, the loss of production and yield which may be experienced in seed or seedling origins can be prevented, germination and emergence performance can be increased. In our study, three different varieties of sugar beet (Serenada, Turbata, Laila) and radish (Kara, Ufacik, Basak) were used. As a priming treatment, these seeds were germinated in the extracts of the lower, middle and upper leaves belonging to six different tomato varieties for 2 days at 25 °C. According to the results, the germination rate of the seeds of Seranada sugar beet cultivar is the best (69 %) with application of top leaf extract of Seyit tomato variety. In the seeds of the Turbata variety, Arzum germinated high (84%) in the middle leaf extract of the tomato variety. While the germination rate was generally high in the radish seeds, the location of the tomato leaves used in the extraction in the application results did not make a difference. However, tomato leaves extract was found effective in the first germination rates of Serenada sugarbeet and Kara radish seeds.