Effect of Different Pretreatment Method on Seed Germination of Gulmohar (Delonix regia)

Gulmohar (Delonix regia), belonging to family Fabacea is an important multipurpose tree and is highly needed for the beautification and decoration of the environment due to its decorative flowers and its canopy formation. It is propogated by seeds and cutting; but is usually grown by seeds. However, natural germination is delayed by seed coat dormancy. The seeds have a hard bony testa, so there is the need to apply pretreatments to ensure good germination. With this information the study was conducted to explore the effects of different seed pretreatment methods on the germination of the seeds and the subsequent early growth performance of the seedlings, were carried out in the forest nursery of School of Forestry and Environment SHIATS, Allahabad during the months of Marchto June 2015. Under Completely Randomized Design with four replications eighty seeds each of Delonix regia i.e. four hundred seeds in total were subjected to different five seeds pretreatments; control, Conc. sulphuric acid (H₂SO₄), cold water, hot water, and nicking. It was found out that the pretreatments significantly affected the germination of the seeds. The result showed that hot water treatment for 20 minutes had significantly enhanced germination and seedling growth. Seed germination started 4 days after sowing and continued up to30 days. The highest germination percentage was observed in T₃ (87.50) i.e. soaking of seeds in hot water in hot water for 20 minutes followed by nicking (T₄) (72.50). The lowest germination percentage was obtained from control (T₀) (45.00). Shoot length, root length, leaf number, fresh shoot weight, fresh root weight and vigour index followed the same trend of higher value for T₃ and T₄ respectively. Similar trend was also observed in shoot and root dry weight. Therefore, pretreatment method was more effective in germination and production ^T3 of quality seedling of Delonix regia.