Seed priming - one small step for farmer, one giant leap for food security: II mechanism and manifestation

Abstract

Seed germination, emergence and crop growth are often constrained by multiple environmental stress under field condition limiting productivity. Seed priming, a age old inexpensive technique, consisting of soaking seeds in priming agent prior to sowing, has been applied to different crops and conditions with varying degrees of success. To understand the significance of this potentially transformative agronomic strategy, we have reviewed here the detailed mechanism of seed priming at physiological and molecular level along with secondary metabolite production. Seed priming has significant positive impact on germination, crop health, yield, mitigation of biotic and abiotic stresses irrespective of its methods such as hydropriming, on-farm priming, halo-priming, osmopriming, osmo- hardening, hormonal priming, matrix priming, nutripriming or bio-priming. This technology could be effectively adopted as a strategy to increase food security in commercial agriculture.