Evaluation of the Agricultural Value and Germination Vigor of the Introduced Seeds of the Main Crops in Saudi Arabia

This investigation was conducted to evaluate the main introduced field and vegetable crop seeds in Saudi Arabia concerning purity, germination, germination vigor and agricultural value. Two cv. were studied from alfalfa, barley, millet, cucumber, pepper and three cv. from tomato. The pure seed percentages were 97.21%, 99.10%, 96.14%, 98.25%, 95.81% and 82.14% for alfalfa Australian-S, alfalfa Cuf 101, barley Gesto, barley Giza-2000, millet Indian and millet African cv., respectively. Purity for vegetable cv. were 98.05%, 96.60%, 98.16%, 96.09%, 98.34%, 99.00% and 98.80%, for cucumber Green Long, cucumber Beit Alfa, pepper California Wonder, pepper Hot Arohein, tomato Super-Strain-B, tomatoes Five Stars and tomato Mormande cv., respectively. Normal seedlings under standard conditions and saline irrigation water stress were 96.67% and 68.94% for alfalfa Australian-S cv. respectively and 94.20% and 60.66% for barley Gesto cv., respectively, while in vegetable crops cucumber Green Long had 86.88% and 42.61%, respectively, pepper Hot Arahein produced 73.64% and 56.67%, respectively and tomato Five Star had 78.68% and 42.17% for normal seedlings (%) under standard conditions and salt stress condition, respectively. Alfalfa Cuf 101 had the highest seed agricultural value (94.38%) and millet African cv. had the lowest agricultural value (62.98%) within the field crop cultivars. In vegetable crops cv., cucumber Beit Alfa cv. had the highest value (87.07%), while pepper Hot Arohein had the lowest agricultural value (70.76%).