Faidherbia albida (Delile) A. Chev. is a key agroforestry species that provides multiple ecosystem services, including soil fertilization, carbon sequestration, and forage production. Despite its ecological importance in climate change mitigation and its vital role for rural communities, natural populations of F. albida are declining due to poor regeneration, inadequate farming practices, and limited access to effective seed pretreatment techniques. This study aimed to assess the effect of seed size and sand scarification on the germination of Faidherbia albida. Seeds were classified into small, medium and large categories and subjected to sulfuric acid (98%), sand scarification and control pretreatment.
The experimental design was a randomized complete block design with two factor (three pretreatments and three seed size categories), each replicated five times. A total of 1,125 seeds were sown in 45 Petri dishes. Seed size had no significant effect (p > 0.05) on germination percentage (74.64 ± 15.11%, 73.17 ± 14.35%, 68.05 ± 13.58% for large, medium,
and small seeds, respectively). Indeed, sand scarification was the most effective method for enhancing germination percentage (70.3% for small, 90% for medium, 71.9% for large seeds), although germination occurred later. Acid pretreatment effectively broke-dormancy (55.9% for small, 72.4% for medium, 90% for large seeds) and accelerated time to first germination (8.13±4.13; 8.13±1.01 and 11.2±0.70 days after sowing), but reduced performance in small seeds. Medium seeds responded best to sand scarification, while large seeds performed better under acid pretreatment. These findings highlight the importance of selecting seed size with appropriate pretreatment to optimize germination.

Dormancy, Germination percentage, Scarification, Seed category, Faidherbia albida, West Africa