Viability of kithul (Caryota urens L.) seeds with storage time
Paper Details
Viability of kithul (Caryota urens L.) seeds with storage time
Abstract
There is a myth among the farmers that Kithul seeds, only dropped by birds and small mammals with their excretion, germinate. The main reason for this myth is the inherent difficulty of germination in Kithul seeds with storage time. Many experiments proved a high percentage of seed germination when the seeds are sowed soon after separating from fresh fruits. In this study, an attempt is made to model the viability of the seeds with the storage time of the seeds. Two types of Kithul seeds were collected and stored for different periods and tested for germination. The findings revealed that there is no dormant period for Kithul seeds and viability continuously decreases with time according to a model fitted for the probit of the germination probability. This fitted model contains the constants: the probit of the initial probability of germination and , a specific constant for Kithul found as 2.90. Although this equation provided a better fit, the terms for the environmental temperature and seed moisture content are to be introduced for further improvement.
Department of Census and Statistics. 2009. Statistics on Kithul Palms in Sri Lanka. Department of Census and Statistics, Colombo, Sri Lanka p. 7.
Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN). “Caryota urens“. Agricultural Research Service (ARS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Gunaratne WDL, Premakumara KVS, Heenkenda AP. 1996. Kithul (Caryota urens L.): A popular multipurpose palm among the rural community. Proceedings of the seventh National Workshop on MPTS for Food security, Kandy, Sri Lanka p. 226-233.
Hartmann HTT, Kester DE, Davies FT, Geneve AL. 2010. Plant propagation: Principles and practices. Pearson PLC, United Kingdom p.928.
Hitinayake G, Munasinghe M, Ranasinghe C. 2018. Identifying methods for rapid and uniform germination and storage conditions for seeds of kithul (Caryota urens L.). International Journal of Agronomy and Agricultural Research (IJAAR). Vol. 12, No. 6, p. 94-100.
Karunanayke S. 1994. “Kithul Tree”. Peradeniya Royal Botanical Garden, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka p. 6-10.
Kraak HL, Vos J. 1987, Seed Viability Constants for Lettuce, Annals of Botany, Volume 59, Issue 3, p. 343-349.
Loftus C. 2000. “Caryota urens”. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN.
Marcus J, Banks K. 1999. A Practical Guide to germinating palm seeds. Journal of the International Palm Society. The International Palm Society.
Taiz L, Zeiger E. 2010. Plant physiology. Fifth edition. Sinauer Associates Inc. Publishers, Sunderland, USA pp. 686-687.
Wijesinghe TMK. 1979. Agro gro-Ecological Regions of Sri-Lanka Department of Agriculture, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.
Abdul Latheef Mohammed Zuhry, Athambawa Mohamed Razmy, 2021. Viability of kithul (Caryota urens L.) seeds with storage time. Int. J. Agron. Agric. Res., 19(6), 6-10.
Copyright © 2021 by the Authors. This article is an open access article and distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.