Effect of fruit age and post-harvest maturation storage on germination and seedling vigor of wood apple (Feronia limonia L. Swingle)

Wood-apple is commonly propagated generatively using seed. Seed commonly is obtained from the waste of mature wood-apple with 3-6 days of post-harvest maturation storage. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of post-harvest maturation storage on various fruit age on wood-apple seed germination and seedling growth. This experiment was arranged by using Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with two factors i.e. fruit age and the duration of post-harvest maturation storage. The first factor was fruit age of four levels i.e. 6 months after anthesis (MAA), 7 MAA, 8 MAA, and mature fruit exactly detached from the tree, hereafter the fallen mature fruit. The second factor was the duration of post-harvest maturation storage which consist of three levels i.e. 0 days of post-harvest maturation storage (DOP) (without storage), 3 DOP, and 6 DOP. An Analysis of Variance followed by Duncan Multiple Range Test with 5% significant level was used. The results showed that post-harvest maturation storage and fruit age affected the seed germination and seedling growth. Germination and seedling emergence increased with the increase of fruit age and post-harvest maturation storage duration. The highest seed germination and seedling emergence were occurred from seed which came from fallen mature fruit either with or without post-harvest maturation storage. Six days of post-harvest maturation storage on fruit aged 8 MAA significantly increased the percentage of germination and the emergence of wood-apple seedling which was similar to the percentage of seed germination from fallen mature fruit.