Abstract

The harmful effects of chemicals and the side effects of chemical drugs on human health have widely focused global attention on herbal drugs and medicinal plants. The increasing use of medicinal plants in the world is more than enough to show the significance of cultivating and producing such plants. Seeds of most medicinal plants have very long dormancy periods, so shortening the dormancy period and increasing sprouting rates through laboratory methods, may be effective in the proliferation of medicinal plants. Salvia L. is a member of the family Lamiaceae with more than 900 species all over the world. One of the most important physiological roles of gibberellic acid concerns its effects on seed sprouting. So, an experiment was run in the form of completely random blocks in 3 iterations to study the effects of different levels of gibberellic acid on seed sprouting of 5 different species of Salvia. Four sprouting treatments were applied to seeds of each species and the sprouting process was studied inside incubators at a temperature of 22°C. Experiment data were analyzed by SPSS 16 software. Results indicated that gibberellic acid treatment resulted in a significant (p<0.01) increase of sprouting percentage in Khardar Salvia, Ghoochani Salvia, Arghavani Salvia, Tamashaei Salvia, and Jonoobi Salvia. These results may be used as a good strategy for shortening dormancy periods and increasing sprouting rates of such seeds.

Key words: Salvia L., seed, sprouting, gibberellic acid, Lamiaceae, Iran.