PG Part-II/Semester-III/Unit-V

Dt. Thursday, 26 August 2010

Dormancy

Dormancy is a period in an organism’s life cycle when growth and development is primarily stopped.
This minimizes metabolic activity and therefore helps an organism to conserve energy. Dormancy
tends to be closely associated with environmental conditions.

Organisms can synthesize entry to a dormant phase with their environment through Predictive or
Consequential means.

Predictive Dormancy: It occurs when an organism enters a dormant phase before the onset of
adverse conditions .e.g., Photoperiod or decreasing temperature, are used by many plants to predict
onset of winter.

Consequential Dormancy: It occurs when organisms enter a dormant phase after adverse
conditions have arisen. This is commonly found in areas with an unpredictable climate.

Seed Dormancy

 The seeds of most of the plants germinate when they are provided with favourable
environmental conditions (viz., moisture, air, suitable temperature and proper sequence of light
and dark).
 There are however many more plants whose seeds, although viable, do not germinate even
though they get all the favourable environmental conditions.
 Germination of such seeds may be delayed for days, weeks, months or even years. The seeds of
such plants are said to be in a state of dormancy.
 The dormancy may thus be defined as the condition of seed when it fails to germinate even
though the environmental conditions, usually considered favourable for active growth, are
present.
 Germination of seeds may not always be prevented due to dormancy. Sometimes seeds may be
quite capable of germination but they fail to germinate due to non-availability of sufficient
moisture or the temperature.
 Physiologists have used two terms to distinguish between these two different situations:
quiescence and dormancy.
 Quiescence is thus defined as the condition of a seed when it fails to germinate because the
environmental conditions normally required for growth (i.e., sufficient moisture and
temperature ranging between 100 to 350C) are not present. Whereas the dormancy is the
condition of a seed when it fails to germinate even normal environmental conditions for growth
are available.

Overcoming Seed Dormancy