Abstract

Ndor, E, Dauda, N. S., and Chammang, H.B

A pot experiment was conducted in the green house at the college of Agriculture Lafia, located between lat.08.33N and long. 08.32E, to determine the effects of different germination media and seed sizes on germination and seedling vigour of fluted pumpkin (Telferia occidentalis). The treatments consisted of four (4) germination media (wood shaven, sawdust, river sand, and topsoil) and two seed sizes (small sizes: 20-24 cm and big sizes: 25-30 cm, diameter) forming eight treatments which were laid in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) and replicated three times. The result showed that River sand has the shortest number of 10.17days to germination which is statistically the same with sawdust and topsoil that germinated at 10.67days and 10.67days respectively. However, wood shaven recorded a significantly longer period of 12.67days to germination. A significant difference was observed on the seed sizes, the smaller seeds germinated earlier (10.75 days) than the bigger seeds that germinated at 11.33 days latter. Sawdust significantly produced the best seedling vigour index of 340.37 which is statistically different from the other germination media. However, wood shaven produced seedlings with low vigour index of 162.18. On the other hand, the bigger seed statistically produced seedling of very high vigour index of 320.35 compare to the small seeds which produce seedling that have low vigour index of 301.38.