Sexual propagation of Abies religiosa (Kunth) Cham, by immersion in water at different temperatures and periods

Resumen

Objective: To increase the germination percentage of Abies religiosa by immersion in water with different temperatures and periods.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A completely randomized factorial experiment was carried out with five temperatures (10, Room temperature (Rt), 30, 40, and 50°C) and 13 periods expressed in seconds (10, 20, 40, 60, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, 3000, 3600, 7200, 14400, and 21600), with a total of 65 treatments and 30 repetitions per treatment. The seeds were dipped in water with the temperatures and periods of each treatment to obtain the highest germination percentage.
Results: The best pre-germination treatment (73% germination) was obtained with the combination of 40 °C and 7,200 s. Meanwhile, the treatments with the lowest percentage (14%) were the combinations 10 °C × 20 s and 10 °C × 40 s. Twenty-six treatments recorded a >50% germination, reaching a peak value of 8.56 at 11.7
days.

Study Limitations/Implications: Keeping the water temperature and theimmersion period constant during the experiment was more difficult in the longer treatments, with the lowest and highest temperatures.
Findings/Conclusions: Abies religiosa registers acceptable germination percentages with the highest temperature (50 °C).