Comparing effect of different dormancy breaking treatments on germination of Smirnovia iranica seeds

Smirnovia iranica is an adaptable plant with desert environments. This species grows on sand dunes and is valuable in view point of forage production, soil conservation and herbal remedy. Since, seed germination of S. iranica is low, therefore the current research was performed to test different dormancy breaking treatments effect on seed germination of S. iranica. The studied treatments were H2SO4 (98%), KNO3 (%0.2) and scarification. To compare the results, distilled water was considered as control treatment. A Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with 4 treatments and 5 replications was made. To analyze the data, ANOVA was used. Duncan test was applied to compare the means. Results showed that there were significant differences between treatments. The highest germination percentage and velocity of germination was related to scarification while the lowest one was related to distilled water. KNO3 was positioned between scarification and H2SO4.