Abstract
The experimental work presented in this study was carried out with the hypothesis that plant derived smoke enhanced the morphological, physiological and biochemical attributes of a cereal crop, wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). Furthermore, this study supported the hypothesis that plant derived smoke acts as vegetative growth promoter, inexpensive, rapid and most appropriate eco-friendly bio-fertilizer for sustainable agriculture. Plant derived smoke was generated by burning of plant material (leaf, straws etc) in a specially designed furnace, and seeds were treated with this smoke for different time duration. Four level of plant derived smoke (1 h, 2 h, 3 h and 4 h) along with control were tested on four wheat cultivars in CRD repeated pot experiment. The smoke-related treatments modified number of morphological, physiological and biochemical features of wheat. Compared with the control, aerosol smoke treatment of the seeds significantly improved root length (2.6%), shoot length (7.7%), RFW (0.04%), SFW (0.7%), SDW (0.1%) and leaf area (63.9%). All the smoke-related treatments significantly promoted RWC (17.3%), water potential (1.5%), osmotic potential (1.4%) and MSI (14.6%) whereas a pronounced increase in chlorophyll a (24.9%), chlorophyll b (21.7%) and total chlorophyll contents (15.5%) were recorded in response to aerosol-smoke treatments. Plant derived smoke exposure applied for short time i.e. 1 h & 2 h induced significant results as compared to prolonged PDS exposure (3 h and 4 h). The best results were observed in Pak-13 and Glaxy-13 wheat cultivars. These findings indicated that the plant-derived smoke treatment has a great potential to improve morphological, physiological and biochemical features of wheat crop.