Studies on Effect of Pre-Sowing Seed Treatments on Seed Germination and Seedlings Vigour of Buchanania lanzana Spreng

Buchanania lanzana (Chironji) has high socioeconomic value providing livelihood to tribal population of the area and has high potential as commercial agroforestry species. At present, the plant is grouped as an underexploited and non-nationalized minor forest produce. It is free for collection, because of which the local inhabitants, traders, and merchants destroy the branches/whole trees during the collection of its fruits without bothering about its regeneration. This has led to the destruction of chironji plants in the forests. Hence, there is an urgent need to develop a technology for easy multiplication and regeneration of chironji, and to popularize its importance among local inhabitants/tribals. Germination is one of the main problems in plant propagation by seed. The very hard seed coat of chironji makes it impermeable to imbibition and gas exchange resulting in low germination and vigor. The present study was carried out to assess the possibility to get the maximum percent of germination in Buchanania lanzan seeds which were treated with different pre-sowing treatments. Among the different pre-sowing treatments cow dung slurry for 48 hours showed the highest germination percentage (84.5%), peak germination value (3.97), mean daily germination (3.01), speed of germination (11.9) and total seedling height (17.65 cm).