Universidad Nacional de Ciencias Forestales

UNACIFOR

PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING OF SEEDS

THE SEED BANK

Anyi Juarez Padilla

Anyi20.2012@gmail.com

Teacher:
Meneli Bardales

Sunday, Agust 26, 2018

School of Forest Science

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF FORESTRY SCIENCES

Introduction

Seeds are the sexual reproduction unit of plants and have the function of
multiplying and perpetuating the species to which they belong, being one of the
most effective elements for it to disperse in time and space. They are the
perennial mechanism by which plants endure generation after generation. They
are also the mobile unit of the plant. Seeds are the means through which, even
passively, plants find new sites and microenvironments. In any crop it is essential
to take into account the quality of the seed for its success. Seeds are the starting
point for production and it is essential to have a good response in sowing
conditions and to produce vigorous seedlings to achieve maximum yield. From a
sustainable point of view, it is impossible to obtain a good harvest if one does not
start from a quality seed, since a crop can result from a lower quality than the
seed sown, but never better than it. Indisputably, good quality seed represents
the strategic input par excellence that allows agricultural activities to be
sustained, contributing significantly to improving their production in terms of
quality and profitability. For this reason, work aimed at stimulating and prolonging
seed germination and subsequent seed conservation is of great scientific and
technical interest, in order to increase crop productivity in a sustainable manner
and to deal with changes in the environment in a more appropriate way, with the
aim of producing quality seeds and in greater quantity there are more practical
and efficient ways of extracting them, for example: Open the hard and indehiscent
pods with a machete or knife and then remove the seeds one by one, dip them in
boiling water for 10-120 seconds, collecting only the brown and ripe cones, which
released 91 percent of their seeds in a single cycle.
Development

In some species it is difficult to extract the seeds even after the fruits have been
subjected to the usual treatments of drying and turning or threshing. In the
Philippines, in the legumes Delonix regia, Pithecellolobium saman, Cassia fistula,
C. javanica and Parkia javanica, the pods must be opened, hard and indehiscent,
with a machete or knife and then the seeds removed one by one (Seeber and
Agpaoa 1976). The pods of P. saman are sweet and the term "termite" likes them
very much; if they are piled in a dark place, after a while only the seeds remain
clean.

Serum cones of species such as Pinus brutia, P. halepensis, P. contorta and P.

radiata sometimes require special treatment to induce them to open. In some
cases, the procedure of immersing them in boiling water for 10-120 seconds (up
to 10 minutes in some specially refractory batches), and then subjecting them to
very high temperatures (75-80°C) in the drying oven, has proved successful. This
high temperature is required to melt the resin which, like a strong adhesive, binds
the overlapping flakes of the cones together (Stein and others 1974, Krugman
and Jenkinson 1974).

Green and immature cones sometimes need special treatment too. Green cones
of Pinus merkusii from Zambales (Philippines) were found to release only 7
percent of the seeds they contained after soaking in water for 48 hours and drying
for 80 hours at an initial temperature of 30°C and a final temperature of 50°C;
when this soaking and drying cycle was repeated five or six times, the cones
released 79 percent of their seeds (Gordon and others 1972). The total period of
this operation, 4-5 weeks, would not be economical in operational forestry. The
other possibility, which is the recommended one, is to harvest only the brown and
ripe cones, which released 91 percent of their seeds in a single cycle.
Conclusion

In seed processing, it is important to take into account the processes that

are carried out on the seeds (drying, cleaning, treatment and packaging of
the seeds) to obtain good quality products for both the domestic and
foreign markets, being at the same time indispensable and decisive for
efficient agricultural production, both economically and environmentally
speaking. For this reason, systems have been regulated for the
encouragement, protection of breeders of cultivars, production, quality
control and marketing of plant propagating material.