Germination and emergence of four rattan Calamus species of Western ghats in response to different pre-sowing seed treatments

Abstract

The present investigation was carried out to study the effect of ten pre-sowing treatments on germination parameter of the four Calamus species in the nursery of College of Forestry, Vellanikkara. Most of the pre-sowing treatments of Calamus spp. gave better performance compared to the control. Complete removal of outer pericarp and sarcotesta of each seed manually (T2), Sulphuric acid treatment for 3-5 minutes after removing sarcotesta (T6) and Hot water treatment (500C) after removing sarcotesta for two minutes followed by soaking in water for 12 hours (T7) were found promising in all the species. The higher germination percentage (83.82, 89.96), mean daily germination (0.020, 3.39), peak value of germination (0.026, 3.45) and germination value (0.00041, 11.56) and was recorded for Calamus thwaitesii and C. metzianus in treatment with GA3 (T9) respectively. The maximum germination percentage (27.74), MDG (0.41), PVG (0.46) and GV (0.20) for C. hookerianus in T7 (Hot water treatment (500C) after removing sarcotesta for two minutes followed by soaking in water for 12 hours), and highest MDG (0.078), PVG (0.91) and GV (0.0065) for C. travancoricus in T5 (Sulphuric acid treatment for 3-5 minutes without removing sarcotesta). The present study reiterated that the pre-sowing treatments hold major scope in the propagation of rattan seedlings which usually could not germinate well under ordinary conditions due to dormancy.