Germinability and Viability of albizia saman seeds subjected to three Scarification Methods

Abstract

Three trials were conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm of the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, on germination and viability of rain tree (Albizia saman) seeds. In the first trial, whole A. saman pods containing an average of 1000 seeds were fed to three breeds of cattle (N’dama, Muturu and White Fulani). In trial 2, uningested whole seeds were treated with hot water at different temperatures (30 - 75^oC) for varying length of time (5 - 40 minutes) and the untreated seeds as control. The last trial involved the use of uningested seeds treated with concentrated sulphuric acid for similar periods of time as with hot water. The seeds that did not germinate after 50 days were treated with tetrazolium to determine their viability. The results of this study showed that the number of germinated seeds was significantly (p<0.05) influenced by both the breed of cattle and the length of seed ingestion. There was improvement in seed germination after ingestion compared to uningested seeds. Maximum germination was obtained for seeds immersed in hot water at 50^oC for 35mins. Treating seeds with concentrated sulphuric acid gave the highest percentage germination of seeds (90-100) compared to hot water (15-100), cattle (34-49) and untreated (30).