Uso de algas marinhas como bioestimulantes da germinação de sementes de Pimenta Arari bode amarela (Capsicum chinense) e Pimenta Cumari (Capsicum baccatum l. var. praetermissum)

Peppers have significant economic and cultural importance in Brazil. The species belong to the Solanaceae family, and have characteristics such as indeterminate growth, continuous flowering and fruiting, which desynchronizes the physiological maturation of seeds, setting a limiting factor for production. Biostimulants can be used as treatments to increase plant productivity and development. Thus, the objective of the present work was to evaluate the effect of brown algae extract on the physiological dormancy break and germination of Arari goat yellow pepper (Capsicum chinense) and Cumari pepper (Capsicum baccatum L. var. Praetermissum) seeds, containing three materials with different strains: TH5, CH5 and MIX. The completely randomized design (DIC) was used, with a simple factorial scheme with 4 treatments: dry seeds (1), seeds soaked in water (2), seeds soaked in brown seaweed extract (3) and seeds soaked in Stimulate® (4). All treatments had four replications of 25 seeds in each. After 12 hours of soaking seeds were removed from the solutions and washed in running water, dried and stored in a cold chamber for 24 hours and then submitted to the standard germination test in a germination chamber regulated at 25ºC and 12 hours photoperiod for 147 days. Were considered germinated seeds that presented normal seedlings (PN), while the remaining seeds were counted as dead seeds (MOR), those that at the end of the test did not germinate and were rotten; and seeds that are not germinated (NG), intact and potentially viable. Goat pepper seeds presented germination in all treatments, while germination of cumari seeds were low or none in all treatments. Even so, the protocol used in this work was not efficient to effectively break the pepper seed dormancy.