Cytological and yield-related analyses in offspring of primed bread wheat (Triticum aestivumL.) seeds

Seed priming with distilled water (hydropriming) and with micronutrients (nutripriming) can improve the agronomic performance of various crops. Iron (Fe) and Zinc (Zn) are essential micronutrients for plants and humans that have been widely used in wheat biofortification. However, the micronutrients excess can generate cyto- and phytotoxicity affecting the germination, cell division, development and yield. Seed priming is repeated in each generation, and its effects were never studied in the offspring of primed plants. Whether its advantages, cyto- or phytotoxicity are transmitted to the unprimed offspring are unknown. In this work, we used the first generation of seeds (S1) harvested in plants whose seeds (S0) were hydroprimed and nutriprimed with 4 mg L(-1)and/or 8 mg L(-1)of Fe and/or Zn. We aimed to study their germination, mitotic cell cycle and seven yield-related components in the adult plants, for further comparison with the data achieved in the S0 generation. A germination percentage of 100% was verified in all S1 offspring. Despite the higher values of the percentage of dividing cells with anomalies (%DCA) in S1 relative to S0, a lower number of types of mitotic irregularities, was found, suggesting cytotoxicity attenuation. The S1 surpassed the S0 for all the yield-related components. Our results suggested that the beneficial effects of hydropriming and Fe and/or Zn nutripriming performed in S0 seeds were enhanced in the S1 offspring via seed provisioning and by the epigenetic inheritance of DNA hypomethylation patterns previously detected in the S0 generation.

Automated summary

This study found that seed priming with hydropriming and Fe and/or Zn nutripriming on S0 seeds can enhance the performance of S1 offspring, suggesting potential growth advantages through seed provisioning and epigenetic inheritance via DNA hypomethylation patterns.