1. National Institute of Agronomic Research | Plant Protection Unit | Marrakech |Morocco| 2. Faculty of sciences| department of biology| El Jadida | Morocco | 3. Cadi Ayyad University | Laboratory of Microbial Biotechnologies, Agro-sciences and Environment | Marrakesh | Morocco | 4. Abdelmalek Esâadi University | Department of Biology | Larache | Morocco | 5. National Institute of Agronomic Research | UR Agro-Biotechnology | Laboratory of Plant Biotechnology | Marrakech | Morocco | 6. National Institute of Agronomic Research | UR Environment, and Conservation of natural resources | Rabat | Morocco |
This article is made freely available as part of this journal's Open Access: ID|Harkousse–Ref23-ajira111220|
ABSTRACT Background: A growing global tendency towards the planting of elite cultivars leads to two types of Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera L) propagation: offshoot propagation or tissue culture propagation. However, the date palm diversity is nowadays facing crucial problems. The alternative for both these methods is seed propagation. The propagation of date palm seeds is troublesome due to its long seed dormancy associated with poor seed germination. Objectives: This study evaluated the efficiency of the operculum removal treatment combined with temperature on the seed dormancy for four different Moroccan cultivars (Najda, Boufegousse, Aziza, and Assian). Methods: Thereby the germination test was carried out using a completely randomized design; the four cultivars seeds were selected and subsequently received the pre-germination treatment. In this survey, the evaluated traits were the germination rate, the germination speed index, and the Timson’s index. Results: Results showed that the treatment significantly (p < 0.05) increased the germination rate and germination percentage for all the four cultivars of date palm compared to the non-treated plants. The germination rate was above 90% and below 20% for the treated seed and control, respectively. The “Najda” and “Assian” cultivars exhibited higher germination rates, in addition to the highest levels of the germination speed index. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that seed dormancy in date palm could best be resolved by an operculum removal treatment combined with temperature. Keywords: Phoenix dactylifera L, Dormancy; seed germination; operculum
