Effects of Stratification, Scarification, Alternating Temperature and Light on Seed Dormancy of Rumex dentatus, Amaranthus retroflexus and Chenopodium album

One of the major problems with effective weed control is the presence of dormancy state in weed seeds. no seeds of toothed dock (rumex dentatus) or common lambsquarters (chenopodium album) germinated at 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or 35 °c, whereas redroot pigweed (amaranthus retroflexus) seeds germinated at most temperatures. stratification, scarification and light effectively stimulated germination of toothed dock and common lambesquarters seeds. these results suggest that toothed dock and common lambesquarters are positively photoblastic. stratification effectively stimulated seed germination of redroot pigweed, whereas scarification of seed by sulphuric acid, even for 5 min, killed the embryo. also, light only increased seed germination at low temperature. probably this is the reason why redroot pigweed seeds under low temperature require a light stimulation by red light because active phytochrome for germination is produced enough in seed coat.