The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of pregerminative treatments on the emergence and initial growth of Jacaranda decurrens subsp. symmetrifoliolata Farias & Proença seedlings. Two experiments were carried out. In the first experiment, seeds were separated into light and dark seeds and were subjected to the following pregerminative treatments: 1) KNO3 (20000 mg L-1); 2) Gibberellic acid (GA3) 50 mg L-1, 3) GA3 100 mg L-1 4) GA3 200 mg L-1; 5) Stimulate 5 mL 0.5 kg-1 seeds; 6) Stimulate 10 mL 0.5 kg-1 seeds; 7) Water 24h; and 8) Control. The sowing was performed on polystyrene trays filled with land + commercial substrate. The five best treatments were selected to evaluate seedling growth. Plants aged 120 days from treatments 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 were transplanted to plastic bags (3kg) filled with land + sand + poultry manure (1:1:1 - v:v), kept under 50% shading and evaluated at 70, 130, 170 and 210 days after transplanting. In general, light seeds had higher germinability and germination speed index (GSI) than the dark ones. However, the plants obtained from these seeds had lower growth than plants from dark seeds. In the second experiment, seeds were primed in the solutions: 1) PEG 6000 (-1.0 MPa); 2) PEG 6000 (-1.0 MPa) + KNO3 (20000 mg L-1) (-1.0 MPa); 3) KNO3 (20000 mg L-1) (-1.0 MPa); 4) Water; and 5) Deionized water, and incubated in a BOD chamber at 10 and 20ºC for 0 (control), 6, 12 and 24h. Then, seeds were dried at room temperature until reaching the matter presented before priming and incubated in a BOD chamber at 20-30ºC with 8h dark - 12h light. The pregerminative treatments did not interfere with the vitality and vigor of seeds primed for up to 12h. There was no difference between 10 and 20ºC for germinability (60%) and GSI. However, the temperature of 10ºC led seedlings to present higher fresh matter (95.7 mg) and mean root (3.2 cm) and shoot (2.6 cm) length. Priming for 24h decreased seed quality and seedling vigor.
biostimulant; gibberellin; priming; PEG 6000; KNO3
