Adesmia latifolia (Spreng) Vog. presents long establishment and integument
hardiness, leading to a non uniform emergence. Therefore, this work aimed at identifying the
osmoconditioning effects at field, plots and laboratory conditions on some physiological qualities
such as germination final percentage and speed, mean seedling length and raw and dry matter
indexes. Osmoconditioned seeds were imbibed for two days in polyethyleneglycol solution (200g/
l)), heated up to 70ºC and afterwards cooled to 20º C. Besides the non-osmoconditioned pattern,
seeds were also sown in lines in plots, in a completely randomized blocks design with four
replications of 40 seeds each, following a treament with hot water at 60ºC. A. latifolia
osmoconditioned seeds showed a superior physiological performance (P<0,05) on germination
final percentage and speed, mean seedling length and raw and dry matter indexes in the plots and
at the laboratory. Seed osmoconditioning with a heated solution in A. latifolia besides improving
seed performance was efficient in overcoming dormancy, therefore there is no need to apply the
methods normally employed for legume species.