Study On Productivity And Seed Dormancy Characteristics Of Sophora Alopecuroides L. Populations In Different Habitats

Sophora alopecuroides L. is an important medical and forage plant which grows wildly in Northwest China. However the productivity of this plant has been rarely reported. The present study included: Firstly, to investigate productivity of S. alopecuroides from wild dry and wet habitats, such as herbage yields, seed yields, seed sizes and hard seed percentages in 2014.Secondly, to observe the production characteristics on S. alopecuroides under cultivation conditions with different irrigation frequency and planting densities treatments from 2014 to 2016.Thirdly, to study the seed dormancy changes under different storage conditions, including room temperature, 8 ℃ low temperature and warehouse ordinary environment from October, 2014 to April, 2015.The thickness of palisade in hilum and seed coat were also observed during the storage. The main result obtained below.1. The production characteristics of S. alopecuroides were greatly affected by wild environmental characteristics. The average hay yield per unit area was 1 330.7 kg ha-1 recorded in dry habitats and 1 546.1 kg ha-1 recorded in wet habitats. The seed yields per unit area, harvest indexes, hard seed percentage and thousand seed weights in dry habitats were all higher than those in wet habitats. The average actual seed yield and harvest index were 335.0 kg ha-1 and 17.0 % recorded in dry habitat, which were significantly higher than moist habitat by 2.2 and 2.1 times(P<0.05). The average hard seed percentage in dry habitat was 91.0 %, 5.7 % higher than wet habitat. In both habitats, the fertile shoots density and seeds per pod had greatly significant correlations with seed yield per unit area(P<0.01).2. We could estimate the nationwide herbage yield of S. alopecuroides would be 2,589,000 tons and the seed yield would be 441,000 tons by the measured data on the assumption that the dry habitat occupied 50% of the whole square.3. The S. alopecuroides just started flowering from third year of planting in all treatments, the mean of flowered plants only accounted 3.4 %.4. In the three storage environment, the hard seed percentages decreased significantly with time increasing(P<0.05), the hard seed percentages in room temperature storage, 8 ℃ low temperature storage and warehouse ordinary storage decreased 9.8 %, 20.5 % and 18.1 %, respectively. There was no significantly difference on decreased rates of hard seed percentages between dry and wet habitats.5. The thickness of palisade layer in hilum and seed coat were both greater in dry habitat than that of wet habitat, palisade layer in seed coat were thicker than hilum in both habitats. After storage for one year, there was no significantly difference on thickness of seed coat palisade layer in both habitats and the thickness of hilum palisade layer descend. The average thickness of palisade layer in hilum decrease 3.8 μm in dry habitat and 16.9 μm in wet habitat.