Use of non-thermal plasma for pathogen control and improvement on the biochemical quality of seeds.

PREVOSTO L; KELLY H; ZILLI CG; BALESTRASSE KB; DEL AMO HOSPITAL C; PÉREZ PIZÁ C

Córdoba

Congreso; XLX Reunión Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular SAIB 2016.; 2016

Non-thermal plasma treatment is a fast, economic and pollution-free method. The objective of this study was to determine whether different non-thermal plasmas could be used for pathogen control and seed performance improvement or not. Soybean seeds were exposed to a multi filamentous DBD discharge. The dielectric barrier of the discharge consisted in a Pertinax 2.5 mm plaque and 2.2 mm layers of Mylar on top of which the seeds were deposited. Different gases (O2 and N2) were used to transport the active agents of the plasma. The seeds were irradiated for 1, 2 and 3 minutes using either O2 or N2. The fungal load and the growth of the seeds radicle with different treatments were compared with a pathogen containing control. To study the biochemical qualities of the seeds, different oxidative enzymes such as GPOX, SOD and CAT as well as lipid peroxidation (TBARS) and the ROS species generated were measured. When evaluating we observed that the 2 minutes treatment with O2 had the least increase in the activities for most of the oxidative enzymes as well as the least amount of TBARS. In addition, we saw that the 2 minutes O2 treatment was the one with the most growth of the seeds radicle. We conclude that the 2 min O2 treatment is the most effective for the pathogen control. In addition, this treatment is the best for the improvement of the biochemical qualities of the soybean seeds.