Department of Botany, V. S.P. Govt. (PG) College, Kairana (Shamli), Uttar Pradesh 

Stevia rebaudiana is an herbaceous plant of family Asteraceae. The plant of Stevia rebaudiana commonly known as sweet leaf or sugar leaf. It is widely used as a natural sweetener to diabetics and others on carbohydrate-controlled diet. The experiment was conducted to study the germination of Stevia seeds in different media i.e. soil, soil + rice husk, sand and vermiculite. Number of seeds germinated was observed daily starting from fifth to twelfth day of sowing the seeds. The data was analyzed statistically at 5% level of significance. The observations showed that variation among different media, in terms of germination percentage was highly significant, statistically. Highest germination per cent was recorded in soil medium (67.5%) followed by soil + rice husk (57.4%), sand (48.4%) and minimum germination in vermiculite i.e. 41.1%. The data reveals that early germination was noticed in all media except vermiculite. In vermiculite the germination was observed on fifth day, first time. Therefore, it is concluded that soil and combination of soil & rice husk can be relied for better germination of Stevia seeds.

Keywords: Stevia, germination, media, soil, vermiculite