Seed Storage Impact on Germination and Survival of Syzygium polycephaloides
Abstract
S. polycephaloides or lipote is native in the Philippines that needs protection and conservation due to its usefulness and is considered as vulnerable and endangered. However, no studies were conducted about the effect of seed storage in germination and survival of S. polycephaloides. The study aimed to address this gap and study the impact of different duration of seed storage on the percent germination, percent germinative energy and percent survival of S. polycephaloides. Single mother tree of lipote served as seed source and collected four times with 10 days interval (T0 – 0 day storage), (T1 – 10 days storage) (T2 – 20 days storage) (T3 – 30 days storage) and sown it simultaneously. One-way ANOVA and Duncan Multiple Range Test post hoc analysis were used to assess the difference among treatments in terms of germination and percent survival indicators. Analysis on the seed storage revealed that there is a significant difference among treatments applied to S. polycephaloides seeds in terms of percent germination and percent survival. Specifically, S. polycephaloides seeds under T2 (20 days of storage) had the highest germination percentage of 93.12% followed by T3 (30 days storage) with 92.5%, T1 (10 days storage) with 81.8%, and T0 (control) with 78.13%. S. polycephaloides seeds under T3 (30 days storage) obtained the highest percent survival of 98.57% compared to T2 (20 days storage), T0 (control), and T1 (10 days storage) obtained 97.27%, 89.65%, and 87.04%, respectively. Both T2 and T3 are significantly higher as compared to the control (T0) (p<.049). Longer storage of seeds appeared to improved germination of S. polycephaloides. The results can be served as basis for future reforestation project and future researches aiming to improve the seed physiological condition of S. polycephaloides under seed storage.
Introduction
Today, the demand of functional food has increase significantly in recent years. Functional foods are ones that offer advantages to health beyond merely meeting nutritional needs. They contain physiologically active ingredients that aid in lowering chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses.
Syzygium polycephaloides is indigenous to the Philippines. Its berry can be juiced and turned into wine or eaten ripe and raw. The antioxidant content of S. polycephaloides is similar to vitamin E (Santiago et al., 2007). In local communities, indigenous fruit trees are important because it serves as food, nutrition and income. However, out of 300 edible fruit tree species in the Philippines only few are cultivated commercially and many others are still remaining underutilized (Dulay et al., 2022).
Storage of seeds helps to preserve its viability because there is a period of time between planting and harvesting. Some of the farmers, researchers, plantation owners used seed storage to recalcitrant, intermediate and orthodox seeds for the purpose of maintaining the seed in good physical and physiological condition from the time they are harvested until the time they are planted. Many Syzygium species like S. cuminii, S. jambos and S. polycephaloides are considered recalcitrant to intermediate seeds wherein these seeds are sensitive to drying and can be kept for several months in low temperature (Abbas et al., 2003).
According to Sultana et al. (2016), there are some various elements that influence seed quality that includes temperature, insects, and all other biotic and abiotic components. Seed stored in low temperature germinate higher compared to the seeds stored in high temperature since high temperature increase the respiration rate and enzymes activity resulting the overhaul of food reserves before the seeds germinate that leads to seed decrease vigor and physical quality seed (Mbofung, 2012). Lack of availability of quality seeds leads to a decline in production due to low percent germination, poor development of seedlings and reduce adaptation in the field (Jyoti and Malik, 2013). Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the percent germination, percent germinative energy and percent survival of S. polycephaloides as affected by different seed storage duration.
Source : Germination and survival of Syzygium polycephaloides (C. B. Rob.) Merr. (Myrtaceae) under varying seed storage duration