Germination Responses of Araribá (Centrolobium tomentosum - Guillem. ex-Bentham - Fabaceae) when Subjected to Different types of Betterments

Dormancy is an inherent characteristic of seeds of some plant species, being on the one hand ecologically beneficial to the plants and on the other hand a barrier to be overcome in activities and seedling production. There are some methods of breaking dormancy, which are used according to the biological characteristics of each species. This is a subject still under development and of great importance within the context of ecological and forest restoration. Therefore, the species endemic to the Brazilian territory Araribá (Centrolobium tomentosum - Guillem. ex-Bentham - Fabaceae) was considered to conduct a study of dormancy breaking methods. After collecting a batch of 54 seeds, they were divided into six groups of nine units and each group was subjected to a type of treatment: control, water with cutting, water without cutting, burning with cutting, burning without cutting, and dry with cutting. The seeds were planted in plastic tubes, with substrate, placed in the same environment and subjected to the same climatic and hydration conditions. After 60 days of experimentation, it was found that the dry with cut treatment presented the best germination percentage, while in the seed lots subjected to burning processes the germination percentage was zero. The average germination time varied little between treatments. The fastest were the seeds from the control condition (average of 30 days) and the seeds from the H2O with cut condition taking the longest (34.7 days). A question arose: is there a distorted concept about dormancy breaking techniques in Araribá or are we studying a species that presents a dormancy pattern considered as complex or combined dormancy? New studies need to be conducted to advance knowledge.