Vegetos

Abstract

Asparagus racemosus is an important medicinal plant. Because of its significant medicinal properties, it has been over exploited from its natural habitat. Owing to its high medicinal properties the plant should be propagated on large scale but limitation is in its low seed germination. In this research our aim was to break Asparagus seed dormancy and improve their germination. Mature seeds of A sparagus racemosus were exposed to three different treatments: warm (35°C) and cold (5°C) stratification and no stratification for one month followed by four different soaking treatments; water at room temperature (25°C), KNO3 1%, GA3 50 ppm and NAA 100 ppm. Effects of these pre-germination treatments on different germination parameters were studied. Maximum germination was observed when the seeds were warm stratified followed by soaking in 1% KNO3 (96.66%) and 50 ppm GA3 (90%), which was rapid and uniform. After cold stratification germination was reduced (8.3%). Seeds without stratification but with different soaking treatments also showed improvement in germination. Cold stratification leads to secondary dormancy in the seeds which was released after soaking treatments but still the germination was less. So it can be hypothesized that the seeds of A sparagus racemosus have non-deep physiological dormancy. Results indicate that the warm stratification followed by soaking were the most effective treatments, which significantly improved germination and removed seed dormancy impediment.