Boosting vegetation, biochemical constituents, grain yield and anti-cancer performance of cultivated oat (Avena sativa L) in calcareous soil using oat extracts coated inside nanocarriers

Calcareous soil contains many problems such as the lack of sources of major and minor elements that are useful for plant growth and development. Plant extracts and nanoparticles are very popular as biostimulants in plant production. Here, the effect of aqueous, non-aqueous and alcoholic oat extracts on the growth, biochemical response of oats leaves and grains grown in experimental fields under new reclamation lands were studied. Moreover, different oat extracts were a pathway through the copper-dependent metal–organic framework (MOFs) to separate bioactive molecules from extracts such as salicylic acid, anthraquinone, and triacylglycerol. Additionally, the separated molecules incorporated in Cu-BTC MOFs and oats extracts missed active molecules were spray applied on oat plants. The results showed that the treated plants showed stimulatory responses in growth and physiology. The treatments improved plant growth and biomass, enhanced total protein, water-soluble carbohydrates, free phenolic compounds content in oat leaves, photosynthesis, and chlorophyll contents. The treatments also improved the level of vitamins E and K, phenolic compounds, and avenanthramides C in the oat grains. Moreover, the treatments showed an improvement in the yield of oats (grain and straw) using water and alcoholic oat extracts in which the active molecules were missed. Our findings demonstrate that Cu-BTC and oats extracts can act as a biostimulant to enhance the biological and chemical properties of oats and increase the yield in calcareous soils. The cytotoxicity study of oats (produced from AE, c@Cu-BTC, and AE-c treatments) was conducted using Vero Cell lines. The anticancer activities of different oat grains were carried out using MCF 7cell lines. The results show that the grains produced from the AE, c@Cu-BTC, and AE-c treatments possessed 94.3, 72.3, and 100% activity towards the cancer cell line. Removal of growth inhibitors from spray solutions increases grain yield and anticancer activity. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-022-03926-w.