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ŠUMARSKI LIST 5-6/2017 str. 40     <-- 40 -->        PDF

of the Peloponnese in Greece, the southern parts of Asia Minor and the mountains of Syria and Lebanon. The main part of the species range in Turkey is divided into several centres the most important being located in the Taurus, Anti-Taurus and Amanos mountains. It usually occurs at 600-1800 (2050) m altitude on rocky and lime terrains in Antalya, Karaman, Konya, Mersin, Adana, Hatay, Osmaniye and Kahramanmaraş. Mostly forms mixed stands with Crimean pine (Pinus nigra J.F.Arnold subsp. pallasiana /Lamb./ Holmboe), Turkish pine (Pinus brutia Ten), cedar of Lebanon (Cedrus libani A. Rich.), Taurus fir (Abies cilicica /Antoine et Kotschy/ Carrière), oaks (QuercusL spp.) and junipers (JuniperusL. spp.). It is a dioecious tree, with conical crown, that reaches 10-20 (40) m in height. Bark is brown and cinnamon beneath, exfoliating in narrowing strips. Leaves are acicular, 10-25 mm long and 3-4 mm wide, with two white bands on the above. Needles are arranged in alternate whorls of three. The seed cones of Syrian juniper are the largest of any juniper species. They are ovoid to globose, 20-25 mm in diameter, brownish-purple or bluish-black, glaucosus and pruniose when ripe in the second year. The fleshy cones mostly have 3 seeds forming a characteristic drupe-like stone (Vidaković, 1991; Adams, 2014; Sobierajska et al., 2016). Likewise, the seeds are very attractive food source for animals. The natural regeneration of Syrian juniper is very difficult because of animal consumption, grazing and the united seeds into the woody structure. In nature, seeds can germinate in period of 3-5 years (Browicz, 1982; Yaltırık, 1988; Gültekin, 2007; Gültekin et al. 2004). In the south of Turkey, J. drupacea cones are traditionally used in molasses processing.
Morphological data are still very important in many fields of plant sciences (Kaplan, 2001; Douaihy et al., 2012; Poljak et al., 2015): different taxon delimitation (Sękiewicz et al., 2016), population variability (Brus et al. 2011, 2016; Douaihy et al., 2012),cultivar characterisation (Poljak et al., 2016) and selection (Polat and Özkaya, 2005), as well as in morphological and physiological seed characterisation (Powell, 2010; Yilmaz and Yüksel, 2014; Drvodelić et al., 2015; Daneshvar et al., 2016). In fact, according to the Powell (2010) in the past few years there is an increased interest for seed science, i.e morphological and physiological characteristics of seeds and their capacity to germinate and survive.
Seeds must be alive and matured as physiological and morphological for germination. Some alive seeds can’t germinate despite they have optimal conditions (moisture, temperature, oxygen light/dark). This condition is named as seed dormancy (Schmidt, 2000; Bewley and Black 2013). Seed dormancy seperated into 5 basic classes. Physiological dormancy, morphological dormancy, morphophysiological dormancy, physical dormancy and combinational (physical and physiological) dormancy (Baskin and Baskin, 2004; Bonner, 2008). Juniperus species seeds show different dormancy characteristics like physiological dormancy (J. phoenicea) or morphophysiological dormancy (J. polycarpos) so it is difficult to propogate from seeds (Broom, 2003; Daneshvar et al. 2016; Al-Ramamneh et al. 2012).
The aim of this study was to determine seed and cone morphology, and to search the dormancy depth and level and proper dormancy-breaking pre-treatments in Syrian juniper seeds from three provenances in the eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey. The effect of GA3 hormone on the germination behaviour of seeds was also tested.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
MATERIJALI I METODE
The cones were collected from three provenances (Mersin-Mut, Kahramanmaraş-Andırın, Adana-Kozan) in Turkey in February and March 2014 (Table 1). The seeds, for dormancy treatments and exogenous application of hormones, were extracted from the cones by hammering the cones, and then they were air dried to 5.4 MC at ambient temperature for two days. The air dried seeds were stored in the closed bottles in the refrigerator till use.
A Syrian juniper cone is composed of three parts. The pulp carpel, woody carpel and seed. From each provenance 50 cones were randomly selected and measured. Firstly cone traits (cone length, cone diameter, cone weight) were measured. Then, pulp part was removed and woody carpel was measured (length, diameter and weight). Finally woody part was broken, the seeds were extracted and the number of seeds and seed weight were determined. In this way, the weight percentage of pulp part, woody part, and seed part in a cone were identified. Furthermore, 50 seeds from each provenance were randomly chosen seed length, width and thickness were measured. 1000-seed weight was also found from 800 seeds (8*100) according to the ISTA rules (1996).
To found out the dormancy level and pre-treatment requirements, seeds from three different provenances were subjected 0 (control), 4 (4w), 8 (8w), 12 (12w) and 16 (16w)