From Plasma Settings to Agricultural Dose: Toward Reporting Standards for Cold Atmospheric Plasma and Plasma‐Activated Water in Agriculture

Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) and plasma‐activated water (PAW) are increasingly explored for seed treatment, plant priming, irrigation, fertigation, stress modulation, and low‐residue crop production. However, studies remain difficult to compare because biological targets are exposed not to generic “plasma” or “PAW”, but to process‐generated physical and chemical states shaped by reactor design, energy input, plasma–liquid or plasma–surface interactions, reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, aging, and delivery mode. This review reframes CAP/PAW as process‐defined exposure systems and proposes a process–chemistry–dose–bioresponse framework with a minimum reporting checklist. The framework distinguishes direct CAP as a multiphysics exposure from PAW/PAL as a time‐dependent liquid‐chemical exposure, while linking process conditions, delivered state, biological response, reproducibility, scale‐up, quality control, and claim‐specific agricultural translation.