Artemisia monosperma is observed to be as one of the first species to dominate disturbed sand dunes in Saudi Arabia. Despite its importance as a sand stabilizer, it has no forage value. It is feared that this species may arrest the natural succession of vegetation. A series of controlled environment experiments was conducted to study the potential allelopathic effects of A. monosperma on germin...

Alkaline stress (high pH) severely damages root cells, and consequently, inhibits rice (Oryza sativa L.) seedling growth. In this study, we demonstrate the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in root cells under alkaline stress. Seedlings of two rice cultivars with different alkaline tolerances, 'Dongdao-4' (moderately alkaline-tolerant) and 'Jiudao-51' (alkaline-sensitive), were subj...

Although Polychronopolis and Lownsbery (1) found that Heterodera schachtii invaded the radicle, hypocotyl, and cotyledons of seedling sugarbeet, they observed no histological or cytological changes other than cellular death and disorganization. Ross (2) reported development of females and brown cysts accompanied by formation of giant cells and hypertrophy in leaves of white clover inoculated wi...

In order to determine the impact of thermo priming on germination of soybean seeds, an experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with three replications. The factors of studied included different time thermo priming (control, 5 and 10 minutes) through the placing seeds were exposed to oven. The results showed that the effect of thermo priming was significant on germination perc...

The success of seedling establishment of desert plants is determined by seedling emergence response to an unpredictable precipitation regime. Sand burial is a crucial and frequent environmental stress that impacts seedling establishment on sand dunes. However, little is known about the ecological role of seed mucilage in seedling emergence in arid sandy environments. We hypothesized that seed m...

Seed and seedling predation may differentially affect competitively superior tree species to increase the relative recruitment success of poor competitors and contribute to the coexistence of tree species. We examined the effect of seed and seedling predation on the seedling recruitment of three tree species, Acer rubrum (red maple), Liriodendron tulipifera (yellow poplar), and Quercus rubra (n...

Forest systems are increasingly threatened by emergent, exotic diseases, yet management strategies for forest trees may be hindered by long generation times and scant background knowledge. We tested whether nursery disease resistance and growth traits have predictive value for the conservation of Notholithocarpus densiflorus, the host most susceptible to sudden oak death. We established three e...

AbstractUniform rapid seed germination generally forms a great risk for the plant population if subsequent intermittent precipitation causes desiccation and seedling death. Handroanthus impetiginosus can be found commonly in a wide range of biomes within Brazil including those that are semi-arid. Germination and early growth was studied to understand how germinated seeds survive under these str...

Seedling emergence and subsequent survival and growth are vital for natural forest restoration or plantation establishment by means of seeds. Such information is lacking for the African bamboo species. Two experiments were carried out in a greenhouse to evaluate the influence of seed orientation and sowing depth of the lowland bamboo Oxytenanthera abyssinica on seedling emergence, survival and ...