Pre-germinative treatments and seed storage of Psidium cattleyanum Sabine morphotypes

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the germination behavior of two morphotypes of P. cattleyanumsubmitted to storage and pre-germinative treatments. The experiment was designed in a factorial scheme 2 x 3 x 3 (morphotypes x storage periods x pre-germinative treatments) completely randomized, using for each treatment 5 replicates with 30 seeds. The seeds were stored in semipermeable packages in a cold chamber at 5 ± 2 °C, for 14, 45,and 90 days. After each storage period, the seeds were submitted to treatments to overcome dormancy: immersion in water at 80 °C,kept in imbibition for 24 and 48 hand control, without any treatment. The seeds were arranged under moistened substrate in transparent plastic boxes and allocated in a germination chamber at 25 °C and photoperiod of 8 h for evaluation of germination percentage (G), germination speed index (GSI)and mean germination time (MGT). The red morphotype seeds showed higher germination percentages than the yellow morphotype and did not have a reduction in these values after 90 days of storage. MGT for yellow morphotype was lower in all pre-germinativetreatments. The GSI had better results at 45 days in the control treatments and 24 h in immersion in water and 90 days for the three pre-germinative treatments. The red morphotype does not require pre-germinative treatments, while the yellow morphotype presents better germination when the seeds are stored for 45 days and immersed in water at 80 °C for 48 h.