Promoting seed germination is important for increasing grain production. It requires increasing tolerance to various types of stresses including drought and the disease tolerance of crops.
Wheat is one of the three major field crops along with maize and rice worldwide. In temperate regions, spring wheat sowing is mostly carried out in March and April. This period represents the seed dormancy due to low average ambient temperatures of 8–15 °C and low soil water content due to drought. Therefore, it is important to break the dormancy of wheat seeds, increase the germination rate of seeds, promote growth, and improve drought tolerance.
Choe Hak Chol, a researcher at the Faculty of Physics, evaluated the effects of the gliding arc discharge (GAD) plasma-treatment on the germination of dormant wheat seeds and old seeds at low ambient temperature.
The GAD plasma promoted the germination of dormant wheat seeds and old seeds at 10 °C. For wheat seeds treated by GAD plasma with a power of 400W, the germination potential, the germination rate, the percentage of germination and the sprout length showed clear increasing trends compared to untreated ones. The positive germination effects similar to the above were observed even for old seeds kept at 25 °C.
You can find more information in his paper “Gliding arc discharge plasma treatment for promoting germination of wheat seed at low ambient temperature” in “Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A” (SCI).