Abstract
Since the earliest agricultural attempts, humankind has been trying to improve crop quality and yields, as well as protect them from adverse conditions. Strategies to meet these goals include breeding, the use of fertilisers, and the genetic manipulation of crops, but also an interesting phenomenon called priming or adaptive response. Priming is based on an application of mild stress to prime a plant for another, mostly stronger stress. There are many priming techniques, such as osmopriming, halopriming, or using physical agents. Non-thermal plasma (NTP) represents a physical agent that contains a mixture of charged, neutral, and radical (mostly reactive oxygen and nitrogen species) particles, and can cause oxidative stress or even the death of cells or organisms upon interaction. However, under certain conditions, NTP can have the opposite effect, which has been previously documented for many plant species. Seed surface sterilization and growth enhancement are the most-reported positive effects of NTP on plants. Moreover, some studies suggest the role of NTP as a promising priming agent. This review deals with the effects of NTP treatment on plants from interaction with seed and cell surface, influence on cellular molecular processes, up to the adaptive response caused by NTP.
Highlights
It has been more than 150 years since physical plasma was first described and began its journey from research to application in many diverse fields
This review aims to describe non-thermal plasma and focus on its effect on plants and the possibility of NTP to induce the adaptive response in plants
We summarized the effects of NTP-treatment on plants
Summary
It has been more than 150 years since physical plasma was first described and began its journey from research to application in many diverse fields. Research of NTPs effects on plant organisms brought some promising results. Can it decontaminate the surface of seeds, but it enables the enhancement of germination and plant growth. Organisms have evolved in such a way that the weak stress can cause the reinforcement of an organism, thereby enabling it to tolerate another dose of stress better. This phenomenon is called the adaptive response, priming, or hormesis [6,7]. This review aims to describe non-thermal plasma and focus on its effect on plants and the possibility of NTP to induce the adaptive response in plants
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