Seedling emergence of

Introduction: Seeds of Methods: Seeds were stored without artificial cooling at ambient temperature (mean 34 °C) for 0, 2, 4 or 6 weeks, reflecting the resource constrained conditions of smallholder nurseries in West Africa. The experiment followed a completely randomized design with 8 treatments (2 collection conditions × 4 storage durations), each replicated 3 times (720 seeds). Emergence was monitored daily for 30 days and analyzed using beta regression (with the Smithson-Verkuilen transformation) for the final emergence proportion and a Cox proportional-hazards model, complemented by Kaplan-Meier estimation and log-rank tests, for emergence dynamics. Results: Storage duration strongly affected emergence (p< 0.001), with a marked decline beyond two weeks. Freshly collected seeds reached the highest final emergence proportion (0.844). Two week-stored seeds reached about 0.55, and seeds stored for four or six weeks showed no emergence. The Kaplan-Meier emergence probability stabilized at 84.4% by day 14 for fresh seeds and at 55% by day 28 for two week-stored seeds. Collection condition affected emergence in a storage-dependent way, with a significant storage × collection interaction (p< 0.001). Canopy-collected seeds emerged more than ground-collected seeds when fresh (p = 0.004). After two weeks, the ranking reversed and ground-collected seeds emerged more (p = 0.008). Discussion and conclusion: These results indicate that storage duration under ambient tropical conditions, rather than soil contact during early post-dispersal, governs the rapid loss of emergence capacity. This loss is consistent with the desiccation and temperature-sensitive behavior previously reported for this presumed recalcitrant species, although no physiological marker was measured here. We establish a practical two-week emergence threshold for seed sourcing, nursery management and forest restoration.