Effect of Different Treatments on Seed Germination of Honey Locust (Gleditschia triacanthos)

Abstract

Honey-locust (Gleditschia triacanthos) seeds, like those of many leguminous species, have hard and impermeable coats. Germination is thought to be enhanced when seeds are scarified or soaked in concentrated sulfuric acid or hot water. This experiment was separated into two parts: Scarification methods and stratification investigation. The result from the first experiment showed that acid scarification treatment for 1 hour was the best method for breaking their dormant period. However in the second experiment it was found that the honey locust seeds like those of many leguminous species do not have dormant embryo, because stratification did not affect seed germination and there was no significant difference between stratification treatment and control. It can be concluded that acid scarification without stratification is optimized in breaking honey-locust seed dormancy.

Effects of dormancy-breaking methods on germination of the water-impermeable seeds of Gleditsia caspica (Fabaceae) and seedling growth

“…In this regard, Merou et al (2011) also found that the seed coat of Albizia julibrissin became permeable when seeds were immersed in sulfuric acid for 2 hours, which increased germination from 33% to 99%. Our results are consistent with those obtained in other studies of Fabaceae species in which acid scarification made the seed coat water-permeable, thus allowing seeds to imbibe and germination (Orozco-Almanza et al, 2003;Hu et al, 2009;Babashpour et al, 2011;Merou et al, 2011). The results of research on seeds of Acacia auriculiformis (Olatunji et al, 2012) revealed that scarification with concentrated sulfuric acid for 5 and 10 minutes brought about the highest germination percentages (more than 92%) compared to that of the control (42%).…”

“…Most temperate-zone legume species have a water-impermeable seed coat (Hu et al, 2009) that results in physical dormancy (PY); therefore, special pre-treatments are required to promote germination. That is, seed germination percentages may be low, irregular, and prolonged unless a treatment is given to make the seed coat water-permeable (Miyase et al, 2010;Babashpour et al, 2011;Soltani et al, 2016). Under natural conditions, this impermeability may decrease gradually, so that a certain percentage of seeds germinates in each germination season.…”

IMPACT OF ACID SCARIFICATION AND COLD MIST STRATIFICATION ON ENHANCING SEED GERMINATION AND SEEDLING EARLY GROWTH OF Albizia lebbeck (L.) Benth.

“…Scarified seeds of Albizia lebbeck (L.) by HCl acid, and increasing immersion time to 45min significantly increased germination percentage to 46.67%. This increasing of germination rate also has been reported by other researchers (Abubakar and Maimuna, 2013;Babashpour and Sharifivash, 2010;Noorafkan and Khoshkhui, 2005;Gizachew and Scarisbrick, 1999). The effect of concentrated HCl on stimulation of seed germination might be due to that the acid may soften hard seed coats and allowing easier water uptake and oxygen diffusion resulting in enzymatic hydrolysis and hence transforming the embryo into a seedling (Olatunji et al, 2012;Alamgir and Hossain, 2005).…”

Effect of Seed Pre-sowing Treatment on Germination of Sweet potato

“…Treatment with conc. acid was effective in breaking the seed coat and acid scarification is known to be highly effective in improving germination of species with hard seed coats [4,35]. Some researchers that have been done on Caspian locust, Honey locust [28] and other species of leguminous like as Albizia julibrissin [19] emphasis the effect of sulphuric acid.…”