Environmental variation in seed and seedling characteristics of Pinus roxburghii Sarg. From Uttarakhand, India

Abstract

The present study was undertaken to assess the environmental variation in seed characters and to explore the efficacy of hydrogen peroxide treatment on the germination and seedling traits of sixteen provenances of Pinus roxburghii from Uttarakhand Himalaya. Provenances, which had higher values for seed parameters showed better germination. Soaking the seeds for 24 hours in a solution of H2O2 (1% v/v) had a significant effect on the rate of germination and average germination percentage. About 88.5% of mean average germination was revealed by the seeds that were treated with H2O2 as compared to the untreated (control) seeds (77.4%). Simultaneously, H2O2 treatment also caused an appreciable decrease, in shortening of germination period by 10 days. Results have shown that the soaking of chir-pine seeds in H2O2 (1% v/v) for 24 hours is highly beneficial and therefore for large scale germination, treatment of H2O2 should be preferred. The germination percentage of seeds was found to be positively correlated with altitude and negatively correlated with rainfall. © 2009.