Studies on assessing the efficacy of cold plasma techniques on the biochemical attributes for plant growth and pathogen control in selected seed samples

Abstract

Sustaining the quality of seeds is essential to supply nutrition to the newlinegrowing world population. Drought, salinity and seed dormancy are the major newlineproblems that affect germination of seeds, crop growth and yield across the world. newlineThe seed coat has a major function during early germination steps, acting both as newlinea physical protection against environment and as a constraint for radicle newlineprotrusion. Therefore, any structural modification of this envelope could affect newlineseed germination. Cold plasma seed treatment is a novel emerging ecoagricultural newlinetechnology for improving seed performance, plant growth and newlineproductivity. It is based on non-ionizing low-level radiation which can activate the newlinevitality of seeds but without causing gene mutations, and hence different from newlinemutation breeding by particle beam. newlineIn the present investigation, the efficacy of cold plasma irradiation on the newlinegermination indices, plant growth characteristics, drought tolerance and yield newlineparameters in green gram were assessed by germination assay and pot culture newlineexperiment. Inductively coupled radiofrequency (RF) plasma of 13.56 MHz was newlineutilized in this study. The optimization of cold plasma treatment conditions by newlinevarying feed gas (O2/ N2), power of discharge - 30W, 50W and 70W and time of newlineexposure (10- 30 minutes) for enhancing seed germination and plant growth was newlinecarried out in chapter IV. Besides, the impact of cold plasma irradiation on newlinemobilization of seed reserves and reduction of anti-nutritional factors in green newlinegram was studied. The quality parameters protein, amino acid profile and vitamins newlineon exposure of cold plasma irradiation was analysed. Positive influence of the newlinecold plasma treatment on the germination rate of green gram and on the kinetics newlineof germination was recorded. Seeds treated with cold plasma are subjected to newlineattack by reactive free radicals and are bombarded by ions resulting in seed coat newlineerosion and etched surfaces.