Abstract Cold plasma treatment may enhance seed germination and growth in agricultural crops, but its effects have not yet been tested on finger millet seeds. The present work investigated how high voltage cold plasma treatment affects the seed germination, morphological traits, anatomical structure, and biochemical characteristics of finger millet (Eleusine coracana Gaertn.) seeds. Effect of surface- and volume-plasma treatments on the seed germination percentage, day of germination, morphological parameters (shoot height, leaf length and root length), anatomy of the stem, amount of soluble sugars, total soluble proteins, hydrogen peroxide, catalase enzyme activity, protein carbonyls content, secondary metabolites (GC–MS profile) and protein expression pattern (SDS-PAGE) were studied. Both surface and volume plasma treatments led to a notable increase in seed germination rates (ranging from 91 to 97%); however, there was little variation observed in the morphological, anatomical and yield attributes. Even though an altered profile of volatile metabolites was noted in plasma-treated finger millet seeds, the SDS-PAGE banding pattern of soluble proteins showed no variation when compared to the control. Increased levels of soluble sugars (4.62–4.86 g/100 g) and proteins (2.20–2.26 g/100 g), along with the increased antioxidant enzyme activity and decreased levels of hydrogen peroxide and protein carbonyls, as well as the activation of specific metabolites, may explain the improved germination of finger millet seeds following plasma treatment. Consequently, utilizing dielectric barrier discharge volume bed plasma treatment could be recommended to improve the germination rate of finger millet seeds.
Ratchika et al. (Sat,) studied this question.