Effects of desiccation on seed quality of Spiderplant (Cleome gynandra L.)

Abstract

A study was conducted to find the critical moisture content or lowest safe moisture content to retain viability and vigour of freshly extracted spiderplant seeds. Seeds harvested at three developmental stages: yellow pods - 55 days after tagging (DAT); yellow-green pods - 45 DAT; green pods -15 DAT were dried above silica gel to 20, 10, 5 and 2% moisture contents. For each maturity stage, viability and vigour tests were carried out. The study showed that seeds from green pods were desiccation intolerant and germination decreased with moisture content reduction. Seeds from yellow-green pods were intermediate and had similar trend as seeds from yellow pods. The fresh seeds from yellow pods with 27.1% moisture content had 6.5% germination and when moisture content was reduced to 5% germination percentage increased to 14.5% but reduced to 14% at 2% moisture content. Hence, according to the findings of this study, the critical or lowest safe moisture content for spiderplant seeds could be between 5% and 3%. The low percentage germination recorded in this study could be attributed to innate dormancy exhibited by freshly harvested spiderplant seeds.