Effect Of Different Temperature Regimes And Chemicals On Seed Germination Behaviour Of Hippophae Salicifolia D. Don

Abstract

Hippophae spp. (commonly known as Seabuckthorn) is a hardy deciduous shrub of family Elaeagnaceae, native to the temperate regions of Europe and Asia. Hippophae is considered to include seven species and eight subspecies, one of which is Hippophae salicifolia D. Don is also found in Indian Himalayan region. It is important for medicinal use in traditional to modern system of medicines e.g.- cough, bronchitis and expectorant. The present investigation was carried out to improve seed germination. We applied different chemicals including GA3 (5mM, 10mM, 15mM, 20mM), KNO3 and thiourea (50 mM, 75 mM, 100 mM, 125 mM) at room temperature for 24h. Treated seeds placed in Petri plates containing moistened Whatman filter paper. Petri plates were kept at different temperature regimes (room, 20°C, 25°C and 30°C) in incubator and moistened as per need with distilled water. A set of seeds without pre-sowing treatments were considered as control. The experiment was carried out in Factorial Control Randomized Design with three replications. Various germination parameters were observed and results indicated that among different treatments combinations; T4U4, (temperature 30°C × thiourea @ 100 mM) was found effective in all seed germination parameters but negative effect of this temperature were seen on survival of seedlings therefore treatment combination T3U4, (temperature 25°C × thiourea @ 100 mM) was found more suitable for early germination (8 days), mean daily germination (0.85 percent seeds/day) and germination percent (94.67).