Liquid Nitrogen as Tree Seeds Dormancy Braking Pre-Treatment

Mai M. A. Hassan¹ and Fatima A. Hassan^2,

¹National Tree Seed Centre, Forest Research Centre, Agricultural Research Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, Khartoum, P.O. Box: 7089, Khartoum, Sudan

²Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Forestry and Range Sciences Department, University of Bakht Er-Ruda Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, White Nile state (AD Duwem) Sudan

Cite this paper:
Mai M. A. Hassan and Fatima A. Hassan. Liquid Nitrogen as Tree Seeds Dormancy Braking Pre-Treatment. Applied Ecology and Forestry Science. 2019; 4(1):1-3. doi: 10.12691/aefs-4-1-1

Abstract

Dormancy is complex and seeds need a very specific pretreatment. The common pre- treatment that used to break dormancy is Acid which is dangerous and environment pollutant. So the aim of these experiments is to find substitute pre-treatments. Most of Sudanese seeds have physical dormancy. The coats are hard and need to be rupture or cracked to start germination process. Exposing the seeds to different series of low temperature (Liquid nitrogen) and high temperature (boiling water) may make cracks in the seeds coat. Seeds of Acacia seyal, Acacia nilotica, Cassia fistula, Acacia oerfota and Delonix regia were dipping in liquid nitrogen for 5 minutes and then dipping in hot water for 5 minutes. This were done 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 times and treated with electric burner as upper control and control without treatment. The results showed that the different treatments have not effected the germination percentage of Acacia nilotica, Cassia fistula, Acacia oerfota but the seeds of Acacia seyal and Delonix regia affected the germination percentage significantly. It gives percentage higher than un treated seeds. This result is promising in using the liquid nitrogen as pre-treatment instead of acid.

Keywords:
dormancy germination percentage liquid nitrogen boiling water

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