The impact of different concentrations of Gibberellic Acid (GA3) on seedling growth performance of cocoa (Theobroma cacao) / Roszalia Abu Bakar

Dormancy is a condition where the seeds unable to germinate even in a specified period of time even in the most favourable environmental conditions. Seed germination is predisposed by the environmental factors such as water, temperature, oxygen, chemicals and light conditions. In order to determine the effective Gibberellic Acid (GA3) concentrations as treatment to break cocoa seed dormancy in cocoa seed and to evaluate the effect of Gibberellic Acid (GA3) treatment on growth performance of cocoa seedlings, an experiment was conducted with 6 replications for each concentration s of Gibberellic Acid (GA3) in a completely randomized design. Cocoa seeds were subjected to different treatments of Gibberellic Acid (GA3) in different concentrations, embryo test, cutting by scalpel, soaking with 7% of sodium hypochlorite , sodium hypochlorite, cocoa seed soaked with different concentration of Gibberellic Acid (GA3) at (100, 200, 300, 400, 500 mgL-l) for a period of 24 hour. Results showed concentrations does have slight effect, with the highest test dose showing better growth in all the parameters but it is not significant statistically.