Abstract
Tetragonia tetragonides is a medicinal plant native to ocean sand soil of southern provinces and has significant effects on the prevention and curing of gastroenteric disorders. Despite of its popularity, supply of the plant has never met the level of demand because of the absence of an adequate culturing method. The present study, thereby, was conducted for classifying the plants with geographically different characteristics, studying growth habits, developing a new culturing method and establishing a large scale propagation system of selected superior individual plants. The study was also aimed for revealing optimum conditions for seed treatment, fertilization, and efficient culturing system and thereby, for utilizing the plant as a new income source for rural communities. The seed was elongated with size of 2.6 mm (width) ${\times}$ 1.8 mm (length). No difference in seed size was observed depending on different inhabitate. Each flower produced about 4.5~4.8 seeds. Germination rate was high for seeds matured for 40 days after fertilization, but deceased to 50% for seeds matured only for 20 or 30 days. Seed dormancy lasted 6 months and seed storage at humid $5^{\circ}C$ facilitated germination. Mechanical obstruct of seed germination was due to seed coat and removal of seed coat enhanced the germination rate. Optimum temp. for seed storage was $5^{\circ}C$, and high germination rate was maintained for 350 days. However, for stratification condition or at room temperature, germination was significantly reduced as storage time increased Optimum treatment of plant growth regulators was soaking in $GA_3$ 250 mg/L for 1 hr. The priming treatment with 50 mM $Ca(NO_3)_2$ at $20^{\circ}C$ for two days improved the seed germination with 10% compared to non-treated control. The treatment of 20% NaOCl for 3 hr. improved the seed germination rate up to 10% and 1 day ahead.
