Seed Technology in Forestry Questions and Answers

Answer: A

Neem seed stays viable up to two weeks or so.

Neem seed is recalcitrant: it cannot be dried and stored like ordinary seeds, and it loses viability quickly after the fruit falls, typically within two to three weeks under ordinary conditions. Nurseries therefore sow fresh seed as soon as possible after collection.

Periods of three or four months or a year are typical of orthodox seeds and would greatly overstate how long neem seed lasts.

Answer: B

The key's answer is April-May.

Arjun (Terminalia arjuna) flowers in the hot season and its five-winged fruits ripen towards the end of the dry season, so they are collected from the trees in about April-May, before the monsoon, and can be sown with the first rains.

December-January and September-October are periods when the fruit is not ready, and July-August falls in the rains, after the fruits have fallen.

Answer: A

The potential capacity of a seed to germinate is its viability.

A viable seed is alive and capable of germinating under suitable conditions, even if it does not germinate at once. Viability can be tested with the tetrazolium test.

Germinative capacity is the percentage of seeds that actually germinate in a test, and germinative energy is the percentage that germinate within a set early period, a measure of speed. Dormancy is the state in which a viable seed does not germinate even when conditions are favourable.