ABSTRACT:

When seeds are collected as soon as they ripen, they germinate without problems in a commercial soil mixture ("Jungle Growth" brand) in plastic covered pots (Melin, 1981). However, seeds collected from taro patches in the South Pacific may often harbor fungi which grow quickly and destroy the seedlings. The procedures we describe here were developed to prevent losses due to such fungal infections. They have been published previously (for a review see Arditti and Strauss, 1979).