Germination of radish seeds (Raphanus sativus) treated with homeopathic drugs

摘要

The radish is a short cycle crop, since it is harvested at 25-30 days after direct sowing. Under the economic point of view it is an important species, but there are few studies on germination of radish seeds. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of high diluted substances on the germination of radish seeds. The trial was conducted at the Agricultural Research Institute of Paran(IAPAR) in Londrina / Paran It was used a pesticide free cultivar named Cometa. The treatments were: Bryonia, hydroalcoholic solution, Arnica montana, Cina and Lupine + Oat, all of them diluted and agitated at 9x; distilled water and agitated distilled water were used as controls. The mother tincture of Lupine + Oat was prepared from plants collected at the experimental station of IAPAR in Londrina. The mother tincture and all treatments were prepared according to the guidelines in the Brazilian Homeopathic Pharmacopeia, Part I [1]. The agitations of the treatments were made by a mechanical equipment, model Denise 10-50 manufactured by Autic. The water was distilled the day before preparing the treatments. The experiment was performed with 300 seeds per treatment. The seeds were placed in gerbox with germitest paper, and 50 gerbox were used per treatment, with six seeds in each gerbox. The germitest papers were moistened with the treatments and the seeds were soaked for 2 hours previously set up the experiment. The substances in high dilutions were agitated 100 times on the machine before soaking the seeds and moistening the germitest paper. The experimental design was entirely randomized and the gerbox were kept at the bench at the Laboratory of Plant Protection of IAPAR. A person not involved in conduct of the experiment coded (blinded) the treatments solutions with a random letter code. The code was kept secret until all measurements and data processing were finished. Seeds were observed daily for germination and counted only those considered germinated. Seeds were considered germinated when the radicle was at least two millimeters length. Arnica montana 9x increased 5.9% the seed germination when compared with distilled water.