Seed germination and seedling development of Moringa oleifera L. under different environments and submitted to pre-soaking

The moringa tree, a native plant species from tropical Africa, although it has been in introduced in Brazil as an ornamental tree, it can be used for industrial and medicine purposes. The effects of seed pre-soaking, and the presence of tegument during seed germination and the development of moringa seedlings were evaluated in this research. The experimental design consisted of treatments factorially arranged in 2x2x2 represented by two different environments (greenhouse and germinator at 25C), two types of moringa seeds (with and without a tegument) and two seed pre-soaking periods (zero and 24 hours), arranged in a completely randomized design with four replicates of 50 seeds each. The means were compared by Tukey's test at 5% of probability. The moringa seeds were evaluated using values of percentage, velocity and average time of germination and the moringa seedlings were evaluated using seedling height. According to the results, seeds with tegument showed higher germination percentage (90%) then the no-tegument seeds (80%). Although the average time of germination had not been influenced by the presence or absence of tegument, it was influenced by the environment (7.0 days in greenhouse to 9.2 days in germination chamber). The average time and the percentage of germination of no-tegument seeds were not influenced by seed pre-soaking. It follows that: moringa seed germination in a germination chamber overcame germination in greenhouse and greenhouse is better for the development of moringa seedlings than the germination chamber.