Evaluation of the germination and development potential of cashew seeds in nursery in Benin

Cashew is an important crop worldwide and its production contributes to the economic development of producing countries.In order to evaluate the evaluation of the germination and development potential of cashew seeds in nursery in Benin, an experiment has been set up in the Ketou municipality.The objective was to improve the agronomic performance of cashew trees by improving the germination rate of cashew seeds.To achieve this, two factors were studied: the type of seed (dried collected seed; non-dried collected seed; dried picked seed; non-dried picked seed) and the type of phytosanitary treatment applied to the seeds (untreated control, treatment with aqueous neem leaf extract and treatment with Momtaz fungicide), the combination of which gave twelve treatments repeated three times in a complete randomized block design.Data collected during the experiment included germination rate, plant height and plant mortality rate.These data have been subjected to a two-factor analysis of variance and the Student Newman-Keul test using R software version 3.4.3.The results showed that the highest germination rates were obtained with dried and undried collected seeds respectively (73.33 and 83.33%).The lowest mortality rate (13.33%) was obtained with Momtaz fungicide treatment of collected and dried seeds.This study recommends that growers use collected, dried seeds treated with Momtaz fungicide to produce cashew seedlings.The study contributes to the knowledge of phytosanitary treatments for cashew seedlings in cashew seedlings and the type of plant material to be used in nurseries for a better production of cashew trees in Benin.