Treatment Induced Germination Improvement in Medicinal Species of Foeniculum vulgare Miller and Cuscuta epithymum(L.) L

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different treatments on seed germination in two medicinal species (Foeniculum vulgare and Cuscuta epithymum). Both species are known to have low seed germination. An experiment was performed with 9 treatments and 4 replications in a completely randomized design. Treatments included KNO3 with concentrations of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 percent, immersion in boiling water for five and ten minutes, acetylsalicylic acid 50 and 100 mg L-1 and prechilling for 10 days. Tap water was used as the control. Our findings indicate that 0.1 KNO3 and 50 mg L-1 acetylsalicylic acid were the most effective treatments for improvement of seed germination percentage in both species.