Quantitative and qualitative comparison of wheat and barley stored seeds in outdoor before processing.

This study was conducted to compare the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of stored seed lots in outdoor in Khorasan Razavi Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Center for 1.5 years from June 2005. The experiment consisted of two factors which was carried out for wheat and barley separately. The First factor was three wheat varieties including Falat, Chamran, Cascojen and also three barley varieties including Reyhan, Karon × Kavir and Makoei. The second factor was duration of exposure to sunlight for 0, 15, 30 and 45 days as an open storage before processing in three main seed processing center in Mashhad, Torbatjam and Torbatheydaryeh. Traits under studied were classified in two series including moisture content, hectolitre weight and seed loss percentage In first group. The second ones were number of germinated seeds, germination percentage, seedling vigor index and germination rate. The First series were measured once and the second series two times before and after accelerated aging test. The First series of data were analysed as factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with three replications and the second series of data were analysed as combined analysis for two separate experiment before and after accelerated aging test. Results for the first series of data showed that wheat moisture content was affected by storage duration and variety × storage duration intraction significantly. But in case of barley was affected only by storage duration. Hectolitre weight in both crop was affected only by variety. Seed loss percentage in both crop was affected by variety and storage duration. Combined analysis for the second series of data showed that number of wheat germinated seed was affected by three interactions i.e. condition × variety, condition × storage duration and variety × storage duration and for barley was affected by two interactions i.e. condition × variety and condition × storage duration. Wheat germination percentage was affect by storage duration and three interactions i.e. condition × variety, condition × storage duration and variety × storage duration and for barley was affected only by those three intractions. Seedling vigor index and germination rate for wheat were affected by storage duration and four intractions i.e. condition × variety, condition × storage duration, variety × storage duration and condition × variety × storage duration. While for barley seedling vigor index was affected by storage duration and three interactions i.e. condition × variety, condition × storage duration and variety × storage duration, but germination rate for barley was affected only by storage duration and condition × variety intraction. Generally, wheat and barley seed lots should be protected from long time exposure to sunlight after harvesting and before processing, but in the restriction of sutible storages at seed processing centers, the priority of storage is for wheat seed lots specially Chamran cultivar compared to barley seed lots.