Production of Durum Wheat (Triticum Durum Desf.) Seedlings Tolerant to Water Deficit from Hydroprimed Seeds

Crop plants are subjected to multiple abiotic stresses during their lifespan that significantly reduce plant productivity and threaten global food security. Recent research suggests that plants can be “primed” to better tolerate different abiotic stresses. In this field, priming, which consists of a pregerminative treatment, is widely studied and even used in order to improve both the development and the yield of plant species, by modulating the metabolic activities of germination before the breakthrough of the radicle. Our research work is part of this perspective and aims to study the effect of hydropriming durum wheat grains on telerance to water deficit stress. Our results indicate that the seedlings resulting from treated grains, and more particularly those which have undergone double hydropriming, do not present after-effects due to water deficit by being characterized by an improvement in growth, a maintenance of cellular turgor and the unaltered membrane integrity. As these plants do not show any effect of oxidative stress. Indeed, hydropriming is an effective method for combating drought.