Nonthermal Plasma Reduces Water Consumption While Accelerating Arabidopsis thaliana Growth and Fecundity

摘要

With climate change and increasing world population, the competition for water available for crop irrigation has increased. The main methods employed to meet the existing food needs are addition of fertilizers to soil and genetic engineering of plants. However, the short- and long-term impacts of these techniques on health and environment are of major concern. The study presented here demonstrates that nonthermal plasma (NTP) treatment of water may address these challenges without the addition of chemicals. Plasma produces a wide variety of metastable radicals, predominantly reactive oxygen and reactive nitrogen species (ROS, RNS) that have been previously proven to activate plant defense responses and to accelerate growth. In this work, NTP was used to treat deionized water for irrigation of Arabidopsis thaliana plants for 7 weeks. Plasma treatment decreased overall water consumption for irrigation, simultaneously enhancing plant growth and yield. We suggest that the reactive nitrogen species (NO3-N) generated by the plasma is responsible for the increased fecundity of plants.