Enhancement of Wheat Seed Germination, Seedling Growth and Nutritional Properties of Wheat Plantlet Juice by Plasma Activated Water
Junhong Wang, Jun‐Hu Cheng, Da‐Wen Sun
Abstract
plasma jet for 1-5 min on wheat seed germination, seedling growth and nutritional properties of wheat plantlet juice was investigated. Results revealed that all PAWs could enhance wheat seed germination and seedling growth in 7 days by improving the germination rate, germination index, fresh weight, dry weight and vigour index, and especially that PAW activated for 3 min (PAW-3) showed the best overall performance. In addition, the application of PAWs enhanced the nutritional properties of wheat plantlet juice from those grown for 14 days by improving total soluble solids, protein content, photosynthetic pigments, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity, enzyme activity, free amino acids and minerals content, and the best enhancement was also observed in PAW-3. It was concluded that PAWs would be an effective technique to enhance the growth and nutritional properties of crop sprouts, which could be served as functional foods in many forms. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00344-022-10677-3.