Cold Plasma as an Innovative Seed Priming Method Enhances Seedling Growth and Salinity Tolerance in Yellow Maize

Abstract

Background: Crop cultivation in saline environments is associated with reduced productivity and quality. Thus, developing novel and efficacious methods to alleviate the critical stress of salinity is a significant component of agricultural sustainability programs to ensure food and feed security. Methods: The present work attempted to utilize the cold plasma technology as a recent approach for enhancing the productivity and quality of salt-stressed yellow maize as a remarkable crop for human and animals. Seedling growth traits were evaluated under screen-house conditions following seed pretreatment with four cold plasma exposure durations (0.0, 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 min, minutes). As well, agronomic traits and grain nutrient uptake were evaluated after seed pretreatment with three plasma exposure durations (0.0, 1.0, and 2.0 min), under open field conditions across three salinity levels: low (3.0 dS m⁻¹ EC), moderate (5.5 dS m⁻¹ EC), and severe (7.0 dS m⁻¹ EC). Results: From the screen-house experiment, it could be concluded that application of plasma as seed pretreatment for 2.0 min showed significant (p < 0.05) improvements in the two hybrids of yellow maize seedling growth expressed in enhancing leaf chlorophyll content seedling length, and seedling fresh weight. Moreover, the open field experiment revealed the potential of plasma to enhance crop traits in normal and moderately soil salinity, while no significant effect was obtained in highly soil salinity. Under moderately soil salinity, plasma exposure duration for 2.0 min outperformed the check treatment (0.0 min) in ear weight and grain yield, showing increases of 42.2 and 42.1% in hybrid SC168 as well as 89.0 and 92.3% in hybrid TC368, respectively. Furthermore, N, K, Fe and Mn uptakes (in hybrid SC168 grains) as well as N, P, K, Zn and Mn uptakes (in hybrid TC368 grains) with plasma exposure duration of 2.0 min were significantly higher than those of corresponding check treatment (0.0 min) under moderately salt-affect soil. Conclusion: Lastly, it could be summarized that application of plasma as a two-minute seed priming in yellow maize achieved distinct enhancements in seedling growth. Since plasma modified seed coat and enhance ROS singling, the tolerance to salt stress raised with maintenance of yellow maize productivity and grain quality.