Abstract

The present study was designed to determine the effect of alternating temperature regimes (R) and pre-treatments on the achenes germination of Artemisia herba-alba Asso, in order to provide information about germination requirements to be used for the rehabilitation programs. Four alternating temperature regimes with a day-night cycle (16/8 h) were applied R1: (35-20 °C), R2: (30-15 °C), R3: (25-10 °C) and R4: (20-05 °C) and ten pre-treatments were tested for the best regime. This pre-treatments include the pre-soaking in cool water at two durations, pre-soaking in hot water for two durations, pre-soaking in sulphuric acid (0.1 Mol/l) for two durations, pre-soaking in GA3 (Gibberellic acid) for four hours at three concentrations (10^-5 M, 10^-4 M and 10^-3 M) and mechanical scarification with soft sandpaper. Temperature regimes affect significantly at the level 0.05 the final germination percentage and influence the germination rate. The R2 registered the best performances and the increase and the decrease of the temperature reduces the ability of seeds to germinate. Also, the application of the pre-treatments result in highly significant differences (p < 0.01) for the germination characteristics, basically the pre-soaking in cool water during 48h that gave the best overall percentage of germination (71%). The use of GA3 to promote germination was not significant as compared to control even at the highest concentration (10^-3 M).

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