Nursery Establishment of Moringa Oleifera as Affected by Pre-Sowing Seed Treatments in a Coarse Textured Soil

Summary in the original language of the document

Pre-sowing seed treatments have been reported to have influence on the germination percentage and growth performance, which could affect crop yield when transplanted to the field. Replacing chemically expensive and laborious pre-treatment with organically pre-treated seeds could reduce the cost of producing moringa by resource-poor farmers. Therefore, a screen-house experiment was conducted at the Department of Agronomy, University of Ibadan to examine effects of six pre-sowing seed treatments – dry seed with complete coat (DSCC), dry cracked seed coat (DCS), dry de-hulled seed (DDS), soaked seed with complete coat (SSCC), soaked cracked seed coat (SCC) and soaked de-hulled seed (SDS) on the germination percentage and growth indicators of moringa plant. The treatments were replicated eight times in a completely randomized design.
The results indicated that DSCC had significantly higher (p=0.05) seed germination percentage than SCC, SSCC, DCS, DDS and SDS by 12, 43.5, 50, 56 and 75%, respectively, at 1 week after sowing (WAS). The trend for vegetative growth was in the order of DCS > DDS > DSCC > SSCC > SDS > SCC at 10 WAS. However, DDS had significantly higher (p=0.05) total biomass weight than DSCC, DCS, SSCC, SCC and SDS on fresh basis by 1.86, 2.17, 2.40, 4.51 and 3.03 g pot-1.
Thus, de-hulling dry moringa seeds before sowing could harness optimal biomass production for quick establishment when transplanted to the field. However, this experiment should be carried on a wide range of soil texture, which could affect seed germination and growth performance.