THERMAL AND CHEMICAL TREATMENTS IN MULUNGU SEEDS AND EFFECTS ON THE PHYSIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF SEEDS

Erythrina velutina Willd. is a Fabaceae, popularly known as mulungu. Of the several species spread around the world about twelve are found in Brazil. Mainly in the Brazilian northeast the bark is used due to its sudorific, sedative and topical anesthetic properties. The presence of fungi in seed germination can reduce, causing the death of seedlings or transmit diseases to adult plants. The work has as objetive to test the thermotherapy and chemical treatment in the control of fungi associated with the mulungu seeds of three districts in the state of Paraiba. The sanity was carried by "Blotter test" and physiological quality of seeds was evaluated by germination, first-germination counting and dry mass. The heat treatment used was hot water at 60 degrees C for 5, 10 and 20 minutes. The chemical treatment was done with the fungicide Captan (R) TS. It was used by treatment 100 seeds, which were incubated for seven days, the temperature of 22 +/- 2 degrees C and photoperiod of 12 hours. The qualitative and quantitative evaluate of the fungi associated with seed was done with the help of stereomicroscope and expressed as a percentage. In the samples examined, it was the incidence of fungi Aspergillus niger, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus sp., Penicillium spp., Cladosporium sp., Rhizopus sp., Fusarium sp and Botritis sp. The results show that the heat and chemical treatments reduced significantly the germination and first count of the locations studied.