Effect of Seed Mass on Germination and Seedling Vigour of Parkia Timoriana (DC.) Merr.

Abstract

Seeds of Parkia tiamoriana show both intra specific and inter specific variation in seed weight. A research was carried out to study the effect of seed mass on germination and early growth parameters of the species. Mature seeds were collected from Sakawrtuchung provenance of Mizoram (India). They were then bulked and grouped into 3 categories as light (lwt), intermediate (mwt) and heavy (hwt), using a predetermines weight method. The grouped seeds are then sown using 1mm sieved garden soil as a medium in poly bags. After germination and from the two leave stage we start counting the seedling length, collar diameter, dry weight, etc., at every 15 days interval and up to 90th day, by using destructive method. Study on the germination and seedling growth parameters conclude that except in mean germination time (MGT) and germination index (GI), all the other parameters are positively correlated with increasing weight. Relative growth rate (RGR) and average growth rate (AGR) that use seedling dry weight also showed a positive relation with seed weight. Apart from this, the distribution pattern of seed weights as calculated from the frequency distribution of 255 seeds did not show lognormal distribution (K-S test: P<0.05, d = 0.163, n = 255). Seed weight (n=255) varied from 0.39g to 0.81g (mean: 0.61g ± 0.01g). Among the weight class, mid weight (0.5 to 0.69g) seeds made up 56.47% of the total population followed by heavy weight (23.14%) and then by light weight (20.39%).