Interruption of Seed Dormancy and In Vitro Germination of the Halophile Emerging Crop Suaeda edulis (Chenopodiaceae)

Abstract

Suaeda edulis (Flores Olvera & Noguez) is a halophile species that grows in saline environments, with concomitant difficulties to germinate and reproduce. Once a null germination under a salinity gradient or fresh water was observed, a plant-growth bioregulator (BioR) was applied to interrupt dormancy and improve germination in vitro. This BioR is composed of gibberellins and adjuvant regulators; and 12.5, 25.0, and 37.5 mg L−1 of gibberellins with immersion at 24, 48, and 72 h were assayed. Most of the normality and homoscedasticity tests were favorable, except in three of 24 cases. On the germination percentage (transformed values), the dose 25.0 mg L−1 reflected the highest values of 5.5 and 6.0 units at 48 and 72 h. For the mean germination time, the highest level of 37.5 mg L−1 at 24 h reflected the best response. For the germination rate, the best one was 25 mg L−1 at 48 h, reaching 12% per day, but for the germination speed coefficient, the best value was observed with 25.0 mg L−1 at 24 h. It was concluded that to improve germination of S. edulis seeds, it is necessary to assess a dose-gradient of gibberellins, starting at 25.0 mg L−1, with higher values to break dormancy.