~ 3110 ~ The Pharma Innovation Journal 2022; 11(7): 3110-3114 ISSN (E): 2277-7695 ISSN (P): 2349-8242 NAAS Rating: 5.23 TPI 2022; 11(7): 3110-3114 © 2022 TPI www.thepharmajournal.com Received: 02-05-2022 Accepted: 07-06-2022 Akshay Parab Department of Horticulture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Amit Kotiyal Department of Horticulture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Vaibhav Patil Department of Horticulture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Corresponding Author: Akshay Parab Department of Horticulture, Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, India Effects of physical treatments and gibberellic acid on germination success of Aonla seed Akshay Parab, Amit Kotiyal and Vaibhav Patil Abstract Aonla (Emblica officinalis) is an important minor fruit crop of India. Demand for Aonla fruit is steadily expanding owing to its use in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and processing industries. Aonla commercially propagated through patch budding but the availability of the quality seedling rootstock for budding technique is a major constraint in expanding area under aonla cultivation. Therefore, various physical treatments (hot water treatment and mechanical scarification using sand paper) and concentrations (200 ppm, 400 ppm and 600 ppm) of GA3 were used for treating to aonla seeds in the experiment. The result indicated that mechanical scarification using sand paper is found to be the most effective for better seed germination (days taken to first germination, germination percentage and survival percentage) and seedling growth (length of seedling, total dry matter of seedling, Vigour Index I and Vigour Index II). Among GA3 concentration, GA3 @400 ppm recorded higher values for seed germination and seedling growth parameters of aonla. The treatment combination of scarification with sand paper + GA3 @400 ppm showed better germination and seedling growth. Therefore, it is concluded that the combination of scarification with sand paper + GA3 @400ppm was found most suitable for seed germination and seedling growth of aonla. Keywords: seedling, physical treatment, sandpaper, scarification, GA3 Introduction Aonla (Emblica officinalis), also known as Indian Gooseberry, is an important minor fruit crop of India. It is a subtropical fruit belonging to the Euphorbiaceae family and is native to tropical Southeast Asia. With an estimated area of 0.08 mha and annual production of 0.97 mt, India is the world leader in Aonla production (Anonymous, 2019). It has been frequently utilized in Indian medicine as a remedy for a variety of ailments (Goyal et al., 2008) [6] . Although considered as a minor fruit, Aonla has commercial significance and is considered as a wonder fruit primarily due to its medicinal properties (Choudhary et al., 2016) [5] Demand for Aonla fruit is steadily expanding as a result of its use in the cosmetic, pharmaceutical and processing industries. One of the biggest obstacles to expanding the area under cultivation of Aonla is lack of quality planting material. Aonla can be propagated by both sexual and asexual methods. However, Aonla is commercially propagated through patch budding (Negi et al., 2010) [19] as seeds show poor and delayed germination owing to seed dormancy. Dormancy may be due to internal (physiological) factors affecting embryo or morphological factor such as hard, thick testa, or due to incorrect storage or handling (Mousavi et al., 2011) [17] . To overcome dormancy, such seeds may require special treatments such as stratification, scarification, soaking in water or seed treatments with growth regulators. The quality of rootstocks is critical to budding success. Because aonla seedlings grow slowly and require a long time to reach the buddable stage, nursery procedures must be learned in order to improve seed germination and seedling growth. Water soaking and heat transfer through water are basic methods for overcoming seed coat impermeability. Plant growth regulators are frequently used to improve seed germination and root and shoot growth in most of the horticultural crops (Lal et al., 2013) [14] . These growth regulators not only increase the seed germination percentage but also hasten seedling growth (Lal and Das, 2017) [13] . Many fruit crops have reported increased germination and vigorous seedlings, or both after soaking seeds in gibberellins. Being a minor crop, limited work has been reported on pre-germination seed treatment with gibberellins, water soaking, heat through water and mechanical scarification in Aonla. Therefore, this experiment was undertaken to find effects of several combinations of physical treatments and seed treatment with GA 3 on germination success of Aonla seeds.