Wheat seedlings traits as affected by soaking at titanium dioxide nanoparticles

The recent advances in nanotechnology and its use in the field of agriculture are astonishingly increasing; therefore, it is important to understand their role in plant life. Four wheat cultivars soaked in different concentrations of TiO2-NPs (0.0%, 0.025 %, 0.05 %, 0.1 %, 0.2 % and 0.5 %) to select a concentration that stimulate cultivars growth under normal conditions during germination stage. Cultivar dependency appeared markedly in their response to TiO2-NPs. Generally, TiO2-NPs did not modify germination percentage, despite 0.1 % TiO2-NPs vastly enhanced seed potential by increasing vigor index, root dry matter stress tolerance index, shoot dry matter stress tolerance index, dry matter stress tolerance index, plant height stress tolerance index, root length stress tolerance index, fresh matter stress tolerance index and pigment composition. The surrounding concentrations exert little effect on the studied parameters and 0.5 % TiO2-NPs suppressed all indices.