Pre-treatment Enhances the Germination and Early Growth of Aquilaria agallocha Lam. (Agarwood)

The imposition of pre-sowing treatment has been playing a crucial role for enhancing the germination percentage of the forest species and its succeeding growth stages. On this contention, a preliminary study was conducted to understand the impact of different pre-sowing treatments on Aquilaria agallocha Lam. (Agarwood) and its early growth behaviour. In this present study, the seeds were subjected to six different pre-sowing treatments. Among the pre-sowing treatments, soaking in water at room temperature for 24 hrs (T3) has resulted the maximum germination percentage (55.25%) as compared to other counterparts. On an average, there was an increase of 49%, 47%, 38%, 40% and 49% of germination percentage, germination capacity, germination energy, peak value and mean daily germination respectively in T3 over control (T6). Similarly, the early seedling growth of the agarwood was also influenced by imposition of different pre-sowing treatments. And all the seedling growth parameters viz., shoot length (cm), root length (cm), seedling length (cm) and seedling vigour index were recorded maximum in T3 as compared to rest of the treatments.