Seed priming with essential oils for sustainable wheat agriculture in semi-arid region

Drought is one of the major constraints to global crop production. A number of sustainable systems have focused on the development of environmentally friendly innovative biotechnological interventions to prevent yield losses. The use of essential oils as a seed priming agent can make an important contribution as a natural stimulant in increasing drought stress tolerance. This study focuses on the effects of seeds coated with different doses (D(0) (0%), D(1) (0.01%), D(2) (0.05%), D(3) (0.10%) and D(4) (0.25%)) of sage, rosemary and lavender essential oils on wheat germination, seedling establishment and yield parameters. Turkey’s local wheat genotype Köse was used as plant material. The impact of the seed priming on germination rate, coleoptile length, shoot length, root length, shoot fresh and dry weight, root fresh and dry weight, relative water content (RWC), proline, and chlorophyll contents was assessed in laboratory experiments. In addition, the effect of essential oil types on yield parameters and agronomic components (plant height, spike height, number of grains per spike, grain yield per spike, grain yield per unit area, thousand-grain weight) was evaluated in a field experiment during the 2019–2020 crop seasons in a semi-arid climate. According to laboratory results, the highest germination rate among all treatment doses was determined in the D(2) treatment (rosemary 93.30%, sage 94.00% and lavender 92.50%), while the lowest germination rates for all essential oil types were determined in the D(4) treatment (rosemary 41.70%, sage 40.90% and lavender 40.90%). Increasing treatment doses showed a similar suppressive effect on the other parameters. In the field experiment, the highest grain yield (256.52 kg/da) and thousand-grain weight (43.30 g) were determined in the rosemary treatment. However, the priming treatment has an insignificant on the number of grains per spike and the spike length. The light of these results, the effects of essential oil types and doses on yield parameters were discussed. The findings highlight the importance of using essential oils in seed priming methods for sustainable agricultural practices.