The umbu tree is a fruit crop of the Brazilian northeast, whose fruits are used in the human feeding, presenting therefore great potential of agroindustry exploration. The slow germination of the seeds limits the seedling production, justifying the accomplishment of this work, which objectifies to study the effect of different fruit maturation stages and water preimbibition times of the endocarps on the germination of the umbu seeds. The fruits were manually unpulped, the endocarps preimbibited in distilled water substituted each 24 hours. It was utilized the entirely randomized design, factorial (4x4x2), being the factors: fruit maturation stages (green, semi-mature, mature and advanced maturation), water preimbibition times of the endocarps (0, 48, 96, and 144 hours) and types of umbu plants (sour and sweet), with 4 replicates and 10 endocarps.parcel-1. The endocarps were sowed in expanded polyesthiren trays contends dystrophic quartzose sandy. From the results it is concluded that the type of umbu plant and the fruit maturation stage influenced the germination. However, the water preimbibition of the endocarps does not influenced the seed germination of the umbu tree.
propagation; dormancy; fruit maturation; vigour
