Seeds consist of encapsulated plant embryos in a highly resistant and desiccated state. Seeds enhance plant fitness by allowing plants to withhold their growth until the appearance of appropriate environmental conditions. Thereupon, seeds germinate, allowing the resumption of the plant’s life cycle. However, protection and propagation is not expected per se to confer fitness without germination...

Pioneer plants are adapted to grow in unpredictable environments. These plants have evolved several traits related to seed morphology and germination to cope with this unpredictability. The main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of plant identity and maternal environment on seed mass and germination of Sinapis arvensis. This study was undertaken with S. arvensis plants grown in fo...

The use of engineered nanomaterials has increased as a result of their positive impact on many sectors of the economy, including agriculture. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are now used to enhance seed germination, plant growth, and photosynthetic quantum efficiency and as antimicrobial agents to control plant diseases. In this study, we examined the effect of AgNP dosage on the seed germination ...

Essential oils have antifungal and antipathogenic effects and therefore are targets in plant pathology research for their potential uses as natural substitutes for inorganic plant pesticides. Beauveria bassiana, an entomopathogenic fungus, can endophytically colonize a vast number of plant species and trigger induced systemic resistance against plant pathogens. Spore germination is the most vul...

The use of plant-based systems to remediate contaminated soils has become an area of intense scientific study in recent years and it is apparent that plants which grow well in contaminated soils need to be identified and screened for use in phytoremediation technologies. This study investigated the effect of diesel fuel on germination of selected plant species. Germination response varied great...

Plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs) are a group of bacteria that can actively colonize plant roots and can modulate plant growth. The present study was aimed to investigate the effects of three PGPRs strains designated as Pseudomonas fluorescens (PF23) and P. putida (PP-41 and PP-159) on seed germination features including germination percentage (GP), mean time germination (MTG), germi...

Plant growth studies involve seed germination studies and this depends on storage viability and dormancy aspects besides essential requirements and factors for the same. Of the various factors regulations plant growth and developmental processes intrinsic factors play a significant role. Plant hormones are chemicals that regulate plant growth. These occur in extremely low concentrations and inf...

Toxicity tests were performed to assess the effect of tannery wastewater with different treatment levels on two wetland plants, Phragmites australis and Typha latifolia, which are frequently used in constructed wetlands (CWs) for water treatment, and thus deepen the knowledge on their capacity to withstand the application of industrial wastewater. Trifolium pratense, a plant generally used as a...

Phytotoxic activity of Ocimum tenuiflorum (Lamiaceae) plant extracts was investigated against the germination and seedling growth of cress (Lepidium sativum), lettuce (Lactuca sativa), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum), barnyard grass (Echinochloa crus-galli), and timothy (Phleum pratense) at four different concentrations. The plant extracts at concentrations grea...

Little is known about the molecular basis of the influence of external carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratio and other abiotic factors on phytohormones regulation during seed germination and plant developmental processes, and the identification of elements that participate in this response is essential to understand plant nutrient perception and signaling. Sugars (sucrose, glucose) and nitrate not only a...