Determination of seed viability of eight wild Saudi Arabian species by germination and X-ray tests.

Our purpose was to evaluate the usefulness of the germination vs. the X-ray test in determining the initial viability of seeds of eight wild species (, , , , , , and ) from Saudi Arabia. Several days were required to determine viability of all eight species via germination tests, while immediate results on filled/viable seeds were obtained with the X-ray test. Seeds of all the species, except , showed high viability in both the germination (98-70% at 25/15 °C, 93-66% at 35/25 °C) and X-ray (100-75%) test. Furthermore, there was general agreement between the germination (10% at 25/15 °C and 8% at 35/25 °C) and X-ray (5%) tests that seed viability of was very low, and X-ray analysis revealed that this was due to poor embryo development. Seeds of have physical dormancy, which was broken by scarification in concentrated sulfuric acid (10 min), and they exhibited high viability in both the germination (98% at 25/15 °C and 93% at 35/25 °C) and X-ray (98%) test. Most of the nongerminated seeds of the eight species except those of were alive as judged by the tetrazolium test (TZ). Thus, for the eight species examined, the X-ray test was a good and rapid predictor of seed viability.