Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or similar structure. The most common example of germination is the outbreak of a seedling of a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm. In addition, the growth of a spore spore, such as spores of fungal spore hyphae, is also germination. Thus, in a general sense, germination can be thought of as expanding into a larger being from a small existence or germ.
Germination is usually the growth of a plant contained within a seed; It is translated into the formation of the seedling, it is also the process of reactivation of the metabolic machinery of the seed that gives rise to the appearance of radicle and plumule. The seed of a vascular plant is a small container produced in a fruit or cone after the union of the male and female reproductive cells. All fully developed seeds contain an embryo and, in most plant species, some food reserves, wrapped in a layer of seeds. Some plants produce a variable number of seeds that lack embryos; These are called empty seeds and never germinate. Sleeping seeds are mature seeds that do not germinate because they are subject to external environmental conditions that prevent the onset of metabolic processes and cell growth. Under suitable conditions, the seed begins to germinate and the embryonic tissues resume the growth, developing towards a seedling.
In agriculture and gardening, the germination rate describes how many seeds of a plant species, variety or batch of seeds can germinate over a given period. It is a measure of the course of germination time and is usually expressed as a percentage, eg a germination rate of 85% indicates that approximately 85 of 100 seeds will probably germinate under appropriate conditions during the given germination period. The germination rate is useful for calculating seed requirements for a given area or the desired number of plants. In seed physiologists and seed scientists, the "germination rate" is the reciprocal time for the germination process to be completed from the moment of planting. On the other hand, the number of seeds capable of completing germination in a population (ie batch of seeds) is called germination capacity.