The efficacy of two household cleaning and disinfecting agents on Lentil (Lens culinaris Medik) and Faba bean (Vicia faba) seed germination during COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially such a pandemic may recur in the future, people are obsessed with excessive use of disinfectants, particularly the sodium hypochlorite bleach and vinegar before it ended up throwing residue into the sewer and then into the groundwater, which considered as an essential source of drinking water and irrigation beside surface waters. This study aimed to test the effect of four treatment levels (0.005%, 0.05%, 0.1%, and 0.5%) from two diluted household sanitizers (bleach and vinegar) in addition to the control (0%) on the seed germination of lentil and faba bean. Six germination parameters, including germination percentage (GP), germination index (GI), mean germination time (MGT), mean germination rate (MGR), vigor index (VI), fresh weight (FW), and dry weight (DW) of seedling, were measured. The completely randomized design (CRD) was used to examine the germination with three replicates at the lab conditions. Results showed notable variation among the disinfecting agent treatments on seeds germination. The germination parameters indicated a direct relationship between increasing of the treatment concentration and the seedling growth inhibition. This research clearly illustrates the detrimental effect of using the household cleaning and disinfecting agents at high dilution levels (0.1, 0.5% active ingredients) on the two legume crop seeds' germination. Data were statistically analyzed using one-way ANOVA, Tukey’s (HSD) test for multiple comparisons, and the correlation between GP and other germination parameters.