Mahadeva Murthy, M.GOWRISH, R.2020-10-062020-10-062019-09-05Th-12462https://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/5810152546It has become inevitable to grow the trees outside the forest, especially to reduce the pressure on forest and forest products. The lack of nursery techniques for production of quality planting materials has become a hindrance in the afforestation programmes. Hence, there is a need to produce healthy and vigorous seedlings in short duration by enhancing seed germination through appropriate pre-sowing seed treatments. With this point in view, the present study was carried out in The Department of Forestry and Environmental Science, UAS, G.K.V.K., Bangalore. Among five treatments given as a pretreatment of seeds, Terminalia bellirica, Terminalia arjuna and Ceasalpina bandusella, were recorded maximum germination percentage viz., 80.30, 76.00 and 67.00 respectively with 100ppm GA3 (Gibberellic acid) pre-treatment. This infers that, the gibberellic acid pre-treatment of seeds showed the maximum and uniform germination for most of the selected tropical tree species. For the standardization of growth media in order to obtain the healthy seedlings, three different media viz., M1, M2, M3 with different combination of soil, sand, manure were formulated. The significant result was obtained by using M1 growth media (3:2:1) which produced maximum height at 90DAP in Ceasalpina bonducella (22.85cm) and Albizia odoratissima (21.05cm) and maximum collar diameter at 90DAP in Terminalia catappa (4.0mm) and Pterocarpus marsupium (3.10mm) was recorded. The least growth parameters of seedlings were recorded in M3 growth media (3:2:0). Thus, the study shows the positive response of pre-treatment of seeds and growth media standardization for production of healthy and vigorous seedlings.EnglishThesis