Effect of compound treatments of sodium carbonate and kinetin on seed germination of Zanthoxylum armatum DC.

Zanthoxylum armatum DC. is an important oil plant and economic crop, but the natural reproduction rate is extremely low due to the existence of dormancy in its seeds, so it is of great significance to explore methods to promote its seed germination. In this study, an orthogonal test was applied to study the effects of different factors on the seed germination indexes with four factors and four levels of different sodium carbonate degreasing time, different incubation temperature, different kinetin soaking concentration, and seed soaking time. Through this study, analysis of variance, correlation, and clustering was applied. The results demonstrated that all experimental groups showed significant improvement in different germination indexes compared with the control. Among which, group 7 treated with sodium carbonate degreasing for 12 h, kinetin soaking concentration of 50 mg/L for 48 h, and under the culture condition of constant temperature at 25°C showed the best performance in germination rate, germination vigor, vitality index, germination index, root length, and shoot length. In addition, the shoot fresh weight and dry weight, root dry weight and fresh weight of group 7 were also significantly increased compared with the control. The results of this study provided a certain theoretical basis for the efficient seed germination of Zanthoxylum armatum DC. in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]