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Cold plasma is a new agricultural technology demonstrating wide potential application in plants. Previous studies have elucidated that the cold plasma pre-treatment of seeds improves seed germination and early growth. However, the effects of cold plasma treatment on vegetative propagation, including rooting, remains unclear. In this study, effects of cold plasma treatment on rooting percentage, physiochemical properties in stolon cuttings and physiological characteristics in the rooting process of centipedegrass (Eremochloa ophiuroides (Munro.) Hack.) stolon cuttings were investigated. The centipedegrass stolon cuttings were pre-treated with 0, 150, 300 and 450 W of cold plasma for 15 s. Cold plasma treatments positively stimulated rooting of stolon cuttings, and the 300 W treatment yielded the best effect. Rooting percentage, numbers of adventitious roots, total root length, total root surface area, total root volume, average root diameter, and dry weights of roots were significantly improved by cold plasma treatments. The conductivity and water uptake increased by cold plasma treatments; the auxin (IAA) content and activities of polyphenol oxidase and peroxidase activities improved, and the IAA-oxidase activity decreased; the soluble sugar and protein contents increased after cold plasma treatment. The results of this study not only showed that cold plasma pre-treatment may improve rooting of vegetations but also provided inspiration and support for the application of cold plasma in vegetative propagation of plant.

This study investigated the effect of cold helium plasma treatment on seed germination, growth and yield of wheat. The effects of different power of cold plasma on the germination of treated wheat seeds were studied. We found that the treatment of 80 W could significantly improve seed germination potential (6.0%) and germination rate (6.7%) compared to the control group. Field experiments were carried out for wheat seeds treated with 80 W cold plasma. Compared with the control, plant height (20.3%), root length (9.0%) and fresh weight (21.8%) were improved significantly at seedling stage. At booting stage, plant height, root length, fresh weight, stem diameter, leaf area and leaf thickness of the treated plant were respectively increased by 21.8%, 11.0%, 7.0%, 9.0%, 13.0% and 25.5%. At the same time, the chlorophyll content (9.8%), nitrogen (10.0%) and moisture content (10.0%) were higher than those of the control, indicating that cold plasma treatment could promote the growth of wheat. The yield of treated wheat was 7.55 t ha−1, 5.89% more than that of the control. Therefore, our results show that cold plasma has important application prospects for increasing wheat yield.