Excess moisture and seedcoat nicking influence germination of triploid watermelon

Poor and inconsistent germination is a problem in triploid watermelon, Nick ing was shown effective in improving germination in triploid cultivars, In this experiment, we examined the effects of high and low medium moisture, a nd nicking on diploid and triploid seed germination. Germination for the di ploid cultivar was unaffected by any treatment. At high moisture conditions , triploid seed germination was severely reduced to less than 15%,while nic king significantly improved germination up to 40 %, However, this increase is still not commercially acceptable, When seed morphological components we re measured for each cultivar, triploid seeds had a larger and highly varia ble air space as compared to the diploid seed. The data confirm that seed g ermination is not inhibited by the seedcoat alone, but appears to be highly sensitive to excessive water conditions.