Assessment of water-retaining capacity of wheat seedlings after exposure to laser radiation

Abstract

The article presented the results of assessing the effect of hydration and water-holding capacity of soft wheat seedlings after preliminary treatment of seeds with a laser with a wavelength of 632,8 nm. The processing timer anged from 15 seconds to 15 minutes. The watering of raw seedlings during drying and air-dry weight was higher than the control values. Thus, the water content of 3-week-old wheat seedlings in all experimental variants exceeded the control by 12.5–45.2 %. The weight of the experimental seedlings after 2 hours of drying exceeded the control value by 23.5–159.4 %, after 4 hours — by 5.6–74.5 %. The dry weight of the seedlings turned out to be 6.7–44.4 % higher than the control in the experimental variants. The water-holding capacity of wheat seedlings according to the experimental variants turned out to be approximately at the control level or higher than the control values. These parameters indicated a positive effect of laser processing of a certain duration on the increase in drought resistance. The best indicators of seedling water content and water-holding capacity were noted for pre-sowing treatments with laserir radiation — 1 minute, 2 minutes, 2 minutes 30 sec-onds, 4 minutes, 10 minutes.