Cold plasma-treated seeds show potential to protect plants, reduce pesticide use
Scientists treat seeds with cold plasma, measure impact on plant growth, insect defense
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A machine acquired by Mahfuzur Rahman, University of Arkansas assistant professor of food science, is used to treat rice seeds with cold plasma for a study examining its effects on plant growth and protection from the fall armyworm.
view moreCredit: Image courtesy of Rupesh Kariyat
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The same substance that paints the sky with the Northern Lights also appears to enhance plant growth and insect defense, according to a new study.
Food science and entomology researchers from the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station teamed up to harness plasma and measure its effects on rice seed. The project began after Mahfuzur Rahman, assistant professor of food science, acquired a machine that produces cold plasma.
Known as the fourth state of matter, plasma is an electrically charged gas that has fluid-like behavior. Rahman points to the Northern Lights as the most familiar example of cold plasma, which means it is considered low temperature compared to the much higher temperatures of plasma in stars. Other examples of cold plasma like that generated in Rahman’s lab include fluorescent lights and neon signs.
Rupesh Kariyat, associate professor of crop entomology, became interested in investigating cold plasma’s effects from an insect perspective — an area he said had not been studied adequately.
“I thought it would be a good idea that we expose our seeds to cold plasma and then grow those seeds out into plants and ask the question of whether the plants are doing better,” Kariyat said.
“If this works, then we can come up with a method to expand at a scale where we can add cold plasma to complement existing seed treatments to boost their growth and defense against insect herbivores,” Kariyat said, noting the potential to reduce insecticide use.
One of Kariyat’s graduate students, Deepak Dilip, led the project in collaboration with Nikitha Modupalli, a postdoctoral fellow in food science and member of Rahman’s lab.
Their study, “Atmospheric cold plasma alters plant traits and negatively affects the growth and development of fall armyworm in rice,” was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports in January.
Dilip served as the lead author, with Modupalli, Rahman and Kariyat serving as co-authors. Both Rahman and Kariyat are researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
Tracking seed germination and plant growth
The study specifically investigated rice plant defense against fall armyworm. Seeds were treated with cold plasma and then irrigated with cold plasma-activated water, which is water that has been treated with cold plasma and has some antimicrobial properties. The plasma interacts with water molecules to generate highly reactive molecules containing oxygen and nitrogen, which effectively kill bacteria.
The results revealed that rice seeds treated with cold plasma could negatively impact fall armyworms’ growth and development.
Researchers also observed signs of improved plant growth such as more leaf growth. They also saw a faster germination rate in cold plasma-treated plants, though this was not statistically significant. It has been found that cold plasma can increase germination by eroding a seed’s surface.
Additionally, though germination rates were quicker, control plants eventually caught up with treated ones in terms of growth, making final germination counts similar between untreated and cold plasma-treated seeds. Researchers point out that this suggests cold plasma applications, though they can benefit initial plant growth, would not be as beneficial in later stages of the plant’s growth cycle.
As for the study’s impacts on the future, Kariyat and Rahman hope to apply cold plasma to the field of organic food production.
Rahman explained that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is evaluating cold plasma as an organic technology, potentially paving the way to alternatives for pesticides.
“In the future, if we can optimize this technology for organic production, it will create a very new avenue for organic food growth,” Rahman said.
To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website. Follow us on 𝕏 at @ArkAgResearch, subscribe to the Food, Farms and Forests podcast and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. Follow us on 𝕏 at @AgInArk. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on three system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
Journal
Scientific Reports
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Atmospheric cold plasma alters plant traits and negatively affects the growth and development of fall armyworm in rice
New insights into plant growth
Asymmetric distribution of brassinosteroids after mitotic cell division
Ghent, Belgium, 10 March 2025 – New research from an international team of plant biologists, led by researchers at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, has revealed crucial insights into the role brassinosteroids – essential plant hormones – play in regulating cell division and growth. The findings, published in Cell, provide a comprehensive understanding of how these hormones influence development at the cellular level.
Plants on steroids
Brassinosteroids are vital hormones for plants, which influence their growth and development at the cellular level. Understanding the dynamics of brassinosteroid signaling helps us grasp how plants grow, adapt to their surroundings, and manage resources effectively. This knowledge could pave the way for improving crop growth and resilience in a rapidly changing environment.
New research led by Prof. Jenny Russinova (VIB-UGent) in close collaboration with late Philip Benfey’s lab (Duke University) and later work led by Prof. Trevor Nolan (California Institute of Technology), explores the dynamics of key brassinosteroid signaling components in the root meristem. The study reveals that following symmetric anticlinal divisions, these components are distributed unevenly, leading to the preferential expression of brassinosteroid biosynthetic enzymes in the lower daughter cell post-division. This asymmetric hormonal signaling is essential for root growth and development in plants.
“We found,” says Dr. Nemanja Vukašinović, co-first author of the study, “that during cell division, brassinosteroids are distributed unevenly between the new cells formed. This means that one cell receives a boost in hormone activity, while the other supports the production of the hormones.”
Tracking plant hormones
Using an innovative combination of single-cell RNA sequencing and long-term live-cell imaging, the team traced fluctuations in brassinosteroid signaling across different phases of the cell cycle. They discovered that signaling peaks during the G1 phase and diminishes during mitosis, highlighting a crucial time window for hormonal action in plant cell development. This phase-dependent regulation may influence how plants adapt to their environment and optimize their growth.
“Understanding how brassinosteroid signaling operates in relation to the cell cycle opens new avenues to manipulate plant growth and development,” said Prof. Russinova. “Our research not only sheds light on fundamental biological processes but also sets the stage for biotechnological applications in crop improvement.”
The study also raises important questions about the mechanisms regulating this uneven distribution and its consequences for overall plant health and functioning. That knowledge, in turn, holds promise for future agricultural strategies, especially as global food demands increase.
Data availability:
The scRNA-seq datasets used in this study can be accessed via the interactive browser here: https://nolanlab.shinyapps.io/arvex.
Journal
Cell
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Polarity-guided uneven mitotic divisions control brassinosteroid activity in proliferating plant root cells
Article Publication Date
10-Mar-2025
600 million years of stress
Research team led by Göttingen University studies evolution of plant networks for environmental stress response
University of Göttingen
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The branching moss Physcomitrium patens, which the researchers used to study stress reactions and compare them to algae (microscope image).
view moreCredit: Tatyana Darienko
Without plants on land, humans could not live on Earth. From mosses to ferns to grasses to trees, plants are our food, fodder and timber. All this diversity emerged from an algal ancestor that conquered land long ago. The success of land plants is surprising because it is a challenging habitat. On land, rapid shifts in environmental conditions lead to stress, and plants have developed an elaborate molecular machinery for sensing and responding. Now, a research team led by the University of Göttingen has compared algae and plants that span 600 million years of independent evolution and pinpointed a shared stress response network using advanced bioinformatic methods. The results were published in Nature Communications.
The closest algal relatives of land plants are the filamentous and unicellular conjugating algae, the zygnematophytes. This group of organisms has received major attention because when researchers compared data about land plants with data about these algae, they could trace back to the very first plants on land. One of the big questions is how the earliest land plants overcame the terrestrial stressors. To find out, the team generated hundreds of samples from a moss model system and two zygnematophyte algae challenged by environmental stressors found on land. Using high throughput sequencing of the active genes and profiling of the compounds produced by the moss and algae under stress, they obtained a comprehensive picture of how the organisms react to the challenges over a time-course of several hours. By combining evolutionary analysis with statistical modelling and machine learning methods, a shared network of gene regulation was predicted.
Professor Jan de Vries, Göttingen University, who led the research, explains: “One of the big surprises was that we found several highly connected genes – known as ‘hubs’ – in the network shared by these very different organisms that actually split from each other in evolutionary terms around 600 million years ago. These hubs appear to bundle information and shape the overall network response.”
“Now we have a comprehensive dataset of stress responses, combining genetic and biochemical information that can be further explored for its physiological impact across plant diversity,” adds Dr Tim Rieseberg, first author of the study and also at Göttingen University.
Original publication: Rieseberg T. et al, “Time-resolved oxidative signal convergence across the algae–embryophyte divide”, Nature Communications 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56939-y
The star-shaped algae Zygnema circumcarinatum shows similar stress reactions to the moss (microscope image).
Credit
Tatyana Darienko
Journal
Nature Communications
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Time-resolved oxidative signal convergence across the algae–embryophyte divide
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