Effect of pre-sowing treatments on seed germination of Hydnocarpus pentandra Buch-Ham

Hydnocarpus pentandra is one of the species from genus Hydnocarpus and is highly valued for its seed oil which is used for treatment of lepromatous leprosy and has an anti-helmintic action against human tapeworm. Large scale exploitation of fruits of this species is going on from natural forests owing to its medicinal properties thus causing threat to its population in wild since the natural regeneration of H pentandra is found to be low. Hence there is need to standardize seed pre-treatment for this species for early and maximum germination in order to domesticate it by raising plantation. Keeping this in view present investigations were carried out to assess the influence of different pre-sowing treatments on the germination of H pentandra. Total twelve pre-treatments were applied out of which alternate wetting and drying in cow dung slurry for fifteen days treatment gave maximum germination percentage (72.67) in comparison to control (31.0) followed by alternate wetting and drying in water for 3 days (58.0). Differences were not significant in soaking in cold water and mechanical scarification treatments. Lowest germination percentage was observed in treatment with bleaching powder (8.00).