Breaking of Dormancy of Erythrina crista-galli Seeds

Abstract

Erythrina crista-galli L., Fabaceae, a medium-sized N-fixing tree, is native to flooding soils of several Brazilian biomes. Its cultivation has interest for ornamental and ecological restoration purposes. Information on seed coat dormancy is conflicting and inexact, therefore the present work aimed to verify it and to define methods for its overcoming. The study was composed by two experiments, using seed lots collected in different dates. Seeds were subjected to inducing germination treatments by chemical scarification (ACS commercial sulfuric acid, d=1,84 g/cm³) and thermic scarification (hot water). Results demonstrated high germination under acid scarification (up to 95%) and inferior when submitted to thermic scarification (reaching up to 43%); witness treatments showed germination between 2% and 13%. The results confirmed the presence of seed coat dormancy. It is recommendable, to break the dormancy of lots which are similar to the investigated ones (three to 27 months after seed collection), the immersion in sulfuric acid during 30 minutes. Seeds maintained its total germinative capacity after storage for 27 months in paper bag in cold chamber (5 °C and 98 % air humidity).