Evaluation of Ferula Assa-Foetida Accessions for Germination Parameters Under Cold Stratification to Overcome Seed Dormancy and Effect of Media Mixtures on Seedling Growth

Abstract

Ferula assa-foetida L. is a perennial of Apiaceae family having seed dormancy which inhibits the germination. Oleo-gum resin obtained from the rhizomes of Ferula assa-foetida plant has several medicinal properties and used for the treatment of various diseases, pharmaceutical industries and in cooking of food in some countries. In present study, three different temperature treatments (5°, 15° and 25°C) were used to break seed dormancy in six Ferula assa-foetida accessions repeatedly for two years. Also the seedling survival rate with other morphological parameters like plant height, no. of leaves, leaf width, leaf length, root length and root diameter were observed on 3 month old seedlings in six different media mixtures during year 2019-20. The germination ranges from 3.63 (EC968466 at 25°C) to 81.88 percent (EC966538 at 5°C) with an average of 31.14 percent over all temperatures and genotypes. The mean germination time was ranged from 19.69 to 42.71 days with an average of 30.14 days. The highest germination (66.9%) and least mean germination time was observed at 5ºC (20.85) which showed that this crop required a 5ºC chilling treatment of about 20 days for breaking seed dormancy. The results pertaining to seedling survival experiment showed that media mixture of sand, soil, FYM and cocopeat (1:2:2:1 and 1:1:1:1 ratio) gave higher seedling survival rate (87.66%) and other morphological traits. It was also observed that the genotype EC966538 and EC968470 were the best performer for overall germination as well as seedling survival parameters and could be used as base population in future selection and improvement breeding programs.