Abstract

Seeds of twenty two leguminous species were sown without any pretreatment in order to investigate the effect of sowing time on their germination in the forest nursery of EÄŸirdir, Turkey. The experimental design was completely randomized blocks with four replications. The sowing times were from 1st February to 15th May 2008 with 15 days intervals. According to the analysis results, it was found out that there were significant differences among the sowing times for all the species apart from Spartium junceum (p<0.001). Three Bauhinia spp., two Colutea spp., two Cytisus spp.,Gleditsia triacanthus, two Robinia spp., Sophora japonica, Spartium junceum, Ulex europaeus andWisteria sinensis seeds germinated successfully on all the studied sowing times. Besides, it was detected the sowing times that Amorpha fruticosa, Calicotome villosa, Coronilla emerus and Genista lydia seeds had no germination. It could also be concluded that seed sowings in the early spring were more effective on germination percentages of all the species. As a result, provided that there are no sufficient time and proper conditions for applying any pretreatment it would be suggested the seed sowing in the early spring.

Key words: Leguminosae, germination, sowing time, EÄŸirdir.