Germination and Viability of Pericopsis elata (Harms) V. Meeuwen (Fabaceae) Seedlings Issues of Different Mother Tree Diameters in Forests Production (East - Cameroon)

Pericopsis elata (Fabaceae) is a highly commercial species of semi-evergreen wet forests in central and western Africa. Its exploitation began in the second half of the 20th century because of its highly valued wood on the international market. Because of its low potential for natural regeneration, it is now considered an endangered species by IUCN and listed in Appendix II of CITES. No action was taken on the identification of good mother tree to enable good production of seedlings suitable for the management of logged forests of this species. Hence the need for new scientific investigation with a view to obtaining the missing information which would allow an unambiguous decision on the threats to the species. The objective of this study, which was conducted from November 2015 to July 2016, was to determine the diameter classes with the highest seed germination rate and the highest viability of the seedling seedlings at four months after sowing. To determine the germination rate, 100 seeds were tested for each diameter class. After germination, the seedlings were monitored for 120 days at the end of which the viability rate was calculated for each diameter class. Seeds from mother tree of the highest diameter classes [60-70cm[, [70-80cm[, [80-90cm[ and [90-100cm[ recorded the best germination rates with respectively 36, 42, 30 and 36%. The simple regression between germination rate and seed diameter classes is significant at the 5% probability threshold. The highest seedling viability rate of 98% is obtained with mother tree the diameter class [70-80cm[. However, it should be noted that the simple regression between plant viability and seed diameter classes have a fairly good relationship.