Impact of physical and chemical pre-treatments on in vitro seed germination of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.)

The pre-treatment of seeds with physical and chemical agents or exposure to different temperatures improves the viability and germination of seeds. The current study was aimed to explore the consequence of various pre-treatments on in vitro seed germination percentage of brinjal (Solanum melongena L.) var. Mattu Gulla. The seeds were pre-treated with Helium-Neon (He-Ne) laser (632.8 nm, 7.1 mW with a power density of 4.0198 mW/cm²), low and high temperatures, acid and alkali. The pre-treated seeds were surface sterilized and germinated aseptically on Murashige and Skoog medium and incubated at 25±2 ºC with 16 h photoperiod. A positive effect of the pre-treatments on germination percentage was observed for He-Ne laser (30 J/cm²), low temperature (4 and -20 °C) and sulphuric acid (30 %). The low temperature pre-treatments were significantly improved the germination of Mattu Gulla seeds while alkali pre-treatment with potassium hydroxide (2.5, 5.3 and 7.6 M KOH) showed inhibitory effect on in vitro seed germination. Thus, the study revealed the integral role of pre-treatment especially with low level laser irradiation and low temperature treatment for the augmented in vitro seed germination of brinjal variety.