Seed Characteristics and Seedling Quality of Selected Teak Clones in Eastern India

Teak (Tectona grandis L.f.) is one of the important timbers of the world and is honoured as the ‘King’ of Indian timbers. It is grown in large scale by people in farm forestry and agroforestry programme and also by various agencies. To understand the characteristics of seeds and the quality of seedlings raised from seeds of selected teak clones, an investigation was carried out. Fruits were collected from 25 clones of teak grown at Silviculture Research Station, Koshala, Angul, Odisha (India) and tested at College of Forestry, Odisha University of Agriculture & Technology, Bhubaneswar (India). Experiments were carried out under Completely Randomized Design with 3 replications. Significant variation in fruit characteristics such as fruit length, fruit width, 100 fruit weight, number of seeds per fruit, fruit viability and germination percent was observed. Fruit length varied from 1.08 to 1.57cm and ORANP-4 produced longest fruit while MHALA-7 had minimum value. Fruit width differed from 1.20 to 2.58cm and the highest width was recorded in ORAN-1 (1.58 cm) and lowest in MHALA- 7. Weight of 100 fruits ranged from 34.28 to 56.64g and ORAN-1 recorded maximum fruit weight which was at par with MHALP-9 (54.23 g) while ORPUB -13 registered the minimum value which statistically similar to MHALA-7.  Number of seeds per fruit varied from 3.10 to 4.00. Fruit viability varied from 47.56 to 70.38% and ORAN-4 excelled in viability and remained statistically at par with ORPUB-23, MHALA-9 and ORANR-6. Germination percent of fruit varied from 30.5 to 49.50% and ORANP-4 recorded maximum germination percent, but it was statistically similar to MHALA-9 and ORANR-6. The growth and quality of seedlings raised from the open pollinated seeds of clones also exhibited significant difference. MHALA-9 excelled over others with regard to collar diameter, height, number of leaves, shoot weight, root weight and quality of seedling in 15 month of assessment in nursery. It recorded seedling quality index of 16.41 at the age of 15 month.