The genus Adesmia (Fabaceae, Papilionoideae) is one of the scarce forage resources at high altitude and arid zones of South America. Its germination behavior has not been examined. Seeds of Adesmia subterranea "Cuerno de Cabra" were pretreated with sulfuric acid (1, 3, and 5 minutes soaking) and mechanical scarification to determine their impact upon dormancy and percentage and speed of germination. Treatments were evaluated under a range of constant temperatures (5 to 30 degrees C) and 2 day/night cycles resembling the extreme environmental conditions of this species habitat. Water uptake and leachate conductivity were higher in the seeds scarified mechanically or with 5 minutes chemical scarification. These treatments also had the greatest total germination and rate at all temperatures in a petri dish germination test. However, in a cell tray experiment using a commercial substrate, the highest seedling emergence and rate were observed with chemical scarification (5 and 3 minutes). The high amount of leakage caused by the scarifications affected emergence in a non-sterile media. The results indicate that A. subterranea seeds have an impermeable seed coat which restricts water uptake, and the efficiency of sulfuric acid scarification to overcome seed coat impermeability and improve germination and emergence. The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact lbry-journals@email.arizona.edu for further information. Migrated from OJS platform August 2020
Scholarly peer-reviewed articles published by the Society for Range Management. Access articles on a rolling-window basis from vol. 1, 1948 up to 5 years from the current year. Formerly Journal of Range Management (JRM). More recent content is available by subscription from SRM.