Storage Time and Conditions of Seeds in Germination and Development of Passiflora ligularis Juss

Abstract

Passiflora ligularis Juss. is highly consumed by people, especially in natura, as juice and ice-cream. However, no successful research is extant on its development and adaptation in Brazil. The high costs of granadilla and the difficulty to buy it, even in supermarkets, justify analysis to verify the adaptability of the species, with production potential, at least in some regions of the country. Current assay is a contribution for research on the behavior of granadilla in Brazil so that information on the effect of time and storage conditions may be obtained for seed germination and the early development stages of the seedlings. Granadilla seeds came from Colombian fruit and the assay focused on the evaluation of seed quality with three different storage periods, with emergence velocity index (EVI) and percentage of seedlings´ germination and development. Treatments comprised Treatment A – seeds stored for 24 months; Treatment B – seeds stored for 3 months; Treatment C – seeds without storage. Randomized design with four replications of 50 seeds was employed and comparisons made by Tukey´s test at 1% probability. Seedlings should be obtained from seeds kept in cold chambers for a period of more than 101 days. Seeds which had been only recently removed from the fruit have low germination percentage and small height growth when compared with plants from seeds stored for 24 months.