The effect of the individual seed mass of Negorelskaya variety Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) on 30-day germination in 40-cell SideSlit growing containers

Abstract

The seeds germination of the Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is an important stage of the tree's life cycle and determines the subsequent productivity and survival, ultimately affecting the composition of the plant community. Germination is related to various biological characteristics of seeds, including individual seed mass. The amount of endosperm nutrients contained in sound seeds can determine the energy available for germination. Experimental evidence of the influence of individual seed mass on germination is still quite small. To test the technology of planting material production with a closed root system, taking into account the individual spectrometric and morphometric features of the Negorelskaya variety for each varietal seed of the Scots pine (P. sylvestris L.), three random sets of 400 de-winged seeds (N = 1200) were sown manually in 40-mesh SideSlit containers of an automated forest nursery. To test the hypothesis about the influence of the individual seed mass of the Scots pine (P. sylvestris L.) varieties "Negorelskaya" on the indicators of its germination in SideSlit containers on the 30th day, a single-factor analysis of variance was used with a check of uniformity according to the Levene's criterion and a posteriori LSD test of averages. The individual mass of the sown seeds varied from 1.0 to 13.3 mg (m ± SD | 60.1 ± 17.5 mg). The average values of the germination index of the seeds of Negorelskaya variety Scots pine (P. sylvestris L.) on day 30 in the volume of 6,8,12,16,18,26 SideSlit containers statistically (Levene's criterion 6.35, p = 1.98e-22; ANOVA F-criterion 1.291, p = 0.0139; a posteriori criterion LSD p < 0.05) differ from the indicator in 2,7,10,11,13,19,22,24,26,27,29 containers. The average values of the individual mass of 942 seeds germinated on the 30th day in the cells of SideSlit containers of the automated forest nursery statistically (Levene's criterion 11.317; p = 0.000792; ANOVA F-criterion 12.098; p = 0.000523) differ from the average values of the individual weight of the ungrown 258 seeds of the Negorelskaya variety Scots pine (P. sylvestris L.). In the future, this seed germination on day 50 in SideSlit containers and comprehensive quality indicators of the seedlings, including DQI and RQI, will be studied.