Dormência e germinação de sementes em Psidium cattleyanum Sabine (araçá vermelho e amarelo)

Abstract

Araçá has economic potential due to its fruits for consumption in natura or as feedstock for the food industry in Brazil. Despite the economic interest, there are few works in the literature and they conflict regarding araçá seed dormancy and procedures to overcome it, which could be a necessary requisite for large-scale production of this species. This work aimed to verify the existence of seed dormancy in fresh-collected red and yellow araçá seeds and, if dormancy exists, determine a possible dormancy release procedure for this species. The applied seed dormancy release treatments were: chemical scarification with concentrated sulfuric acid, thermal shock with hot water, chemically induced germination with gibberellic acid, a combination of sulfuric acid and gibberellic acid treatments, a combination of hot water and gibberellic acid treatments, and a control. The seeds were kept incubated in a BOD incubator for 60 days at 25±2 °C and a photoperiod of 16 h light and 8 h dark. The percentage of germination and the germination speed index (GSI) were evaluated. The data underwent ANOVA, followed by Tukey's multiple range test at 5% probability. After 60 days of incubation, no treatment was statistically different from the controls for red and yellow araçá seeds. indicating that both red and yellow araçá fresh-collected seeds do not have dormancy. Thus, there is no need for dormancy overcoming treatment, saving time and costs in seedling production of this species.