An experiment was performed with three commercial seed lots of Marandu cultivar to evaluate the efficiency of several treatments to overcome Brachiaria brizantha seed dormancy. The seeds were submitted to different treatments which consisted of individually hand-dehulled seed, caryopsis imbibition in substrate soaked with potassium nitrate (KNO3) solution at 0.2% concentration, seed scarification with concentrated sulphuric acid (H2SO4) for 15 minutes, different periods of accelerated aging and the control. The accelerated aging test consisted of six periods of exposure (12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and 72 hours) to a temperature of 43ºC. The evaluated characteristics were seed germination percentage, viability through the tetrazolium test, seed purity percentage, moisture content and the weight of one thousand seeds. The results were submitted to variance and regression analysis to evaluate the different accelerated aging periods. The different treatments were compared with the control using the Dunnett test, at 5% probability. The individually hand-dehulled seed was considered the best treatment to overcome physiological seed dormancy. The accelerated aging test was an effective treatment to release B. brizantha seed dormancy, however the exposition period was variable with the initial seed quality of the seed lot.
tropical grasses; sulphuric acid; potassium nitrate; germination
