Progressive Horticulture

Dragon fruit (Hylocereus undatus) is an introduced excellent fruit in India which can be propagated through seeds and stem cuttings. The dragon fruit seeds were used to observe the germination efficiency at the Horticultural experimental area, Khalsa College, Amritsar during the year 2023-24 in Randomized Block Design. Since the germination of dragon fruit takes much longer time, therefore, to minimize the time of seed germination and to enhance its efficiency by various treatments viz. T₁(Normal water), T₂ (Incubation at 30°C), T₃ (Mixture of sand and water until germination),T₄ (GA₃ treatment 100 ppm), T₅dehydrated condition 24 h), T₆ ( Hot water at 50°C ), T₇(mercuric chloride 0.1%), T₈ (Sulphuric acid 5 min), T₉(Citric acid 48 hrs) and T₁₀(Control). respectively. The results revealed that the mixture of sand and water initiated earlier germination (3.64), enhanced germination rate (98.32 %), improved vegetative traits in terms of plant length (9.34 cm), root length (6.42 cm), seedling length (9.34 cm), number of segments (8.64) , number of aeroles (9.29) , seedling fresh weight (2.23 g), seedling dry weight (1.93 g) and fresh root weight (0.22 g) than other treatments indicating its adequacy in improving seed quality attributes in dragon fruit. The commercial growers can use this treatment for mass multiplication of dragon fruit plants.