Seed priming - one small step for farmer, one giant leap for food security: I application and exploration

Crops under field condition face multiple abiotic and biotic stresses that reduce productivity and threaten world food security. Recent works suggests seed priming can optimise seed vigour through genetic repairing and optimising plant physiological process. Priming seeds not only produce robust seedling but also makes the plant ready to face multiple probable stresses in the field more efficiently. We review here factors influencing seed priming and promising methods such as hydro priming, halo priming, osmo-priming, osmo-hardening, hormonal priming, matrix priming, nutri priming and bio-priming that can potentially confer enhanced tolerance when plants are exposed to multiple stresses. The crop specific use of different agents along with its challenges, opportunities and explorative evidences of chemical priming with Selenium and nano Zinc are addressed, with the aim to boost future research towards effective application in crop stress management.