Determination of standard seed-testing procedures for indigenous and exotic forest tree species

Nine species of trees: mahogany, narra, akle, teak, malapapaya, rain tree, agoho, Acacia auriculiformis and A. mangium were tested for MC [moisture content] standardization. For germination tests, species studied included white lauan, kamagong, palosapis, mahogany, rain tree, narra, akle and Acacia auriculiformis. Results of MC standardization showed that maximum MC extraction was obtained for whole seeds of mahogany, narra, malapapaya, teak, agoho and A. auriculiformis seeds while ground seeds for A. mangium. Mahogany and narra at 5 seeds/replicate attained the maximum MC extraction (8.45 percent and 12.25 percent, respectively) when dried at 103 +- 2 deg C for 17 hours. With the same temperature and number of hours of ovendrying, malapapaya seeds attained the maximum MC of 13.25 percent at 1 g/replicate. A. auriculiformis seeds attained 10.63 percent MC at 2 g/replicate and rain tree seeds, 9.91 percent MC at 5 g/replicate when dried at 103 +- 2 deg C for 24 hours. Similarly, with the same temperature for 24 hours, ground seeds of A. mangium at 1 g/replicate got a maximum extraction of 9.93 percent. Teak seeds at 5 seeds/replicate and agoho seeds at 1 g/replicate attained maximum MC extraction of 13.16 percent and 9.78 percent, respectively when dried at 90 deg C for 24 hours. On the other hand, ground seeds of akle at 2 seeds/replicate attained the optimum MC extraction of 10.96 percent when dried at the same temperature for 17 hours. For the germination test standard, the number of seeds per replicate did not give any significant effect on the germination of seeds. With the use of both paper towel and sand as media, white Lauan and palosapis obtained the highest germination of 96.25 percent and 91 percent, respectively. For rain tree, sand was the best medium. The highest percentage germination was obtained for kamagong (96.18 percent), mahogany (95.75 percent), A. auriculiformis (68.5 percent), narra (64 percent) and akle (64.65 percent) using paper towel as medium. Nicking and soaking in tap water enhanced the germination of rain tree seeds to 95.93 percent, by soaking in fungicide solution overnight