Seed germination of woody legumes from deciduous tropical forest of southern mexico

Abstract

Seed germination experiments were conducted on six woody leguminous species which are widely used by rural inhabitants of a mountainous tropical subhumid region in southern Mexico. Conditions for optimum germination were sought in nursery conditions by applying various hot water treatments (1 min, 3 min, 5 min and 10 min in boiling water) and scarification to seeds of differing storage durations. Lysiloma divaricata germinated promptly without any treatment. Leucaena esculenta and L. macrophylla seeds germinated more readily after boiling (1 min), regardless of storage duration. Acacia species (A. cochliacantha, A. farnesiana and A. pennatula) had optimum germination with scarification treatments for all storage durations, while short-time boiling (1 min, 3 min) of their seeds increased germination only moderately. Seeds of species typical of primary vegetation lost viability sooner than those of species more frequent in disturbed areas. From these results, seed handling routines and germination pre-treatments practices can be derived for these species, all of which can potentially be used in reforestation on degraded soils.