Effect of Pre-sowing Treatment to Break the Seed Dormancy and Seed Germination of Melia composita under Laboratory Conditions

Melia composita (Burma dek) is one of the multipurpose fast growing tree species applicable for the agri-silviculture system. In northern India, due to its fast growing and short rotation nature it has developed one of chosen tree species by the farmers under agroforestry. Melia composita occurs mostly in tropical moist and dry deciduous forest of Himalayas. The seed have Hard endocarp and therefore quite difficult to germinate. There are different types of seed dormancy and it helps in find out the better pre-sowing treatment to assure early and uniform germination of seeds. This leads to minimize the cost of large scale seedlings production. The present study was conducted at Laboratory of Seed Science and Technology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University during 2019 to evaluate the “Effect of pre-sowing treatments on seed germination of Melia composita”. Five pre-sowing treatments viz., normal water soaking (24, 48 and 72hr), conc. H2SO4 (5, 10 and 15 min.), cow dung slurry (5, 10 and 15 days), boiling water (5, 10 and 15 min.), mechanical scarification + GA3 (100 ppm) (8, 16 and 24hr). In laboratory conditions, maximum germination (64.67 %) and seed viability (74.67%) were recorded in concentrated H2SO4 treatment at 15 minute, whereas maximum root length (7.54 cm), shoot length (16.72 cm), root: shoot ratio and seedling dry weight (0.65g) were recorded in mechanical scarification + GA3 (100 ppm) at 24 hr.