Seed-Enhancement Technologies Promote Direct Seeding and Overcoming Biotic and Abiotic Barriers in Degraded Dryland Ecosystem

Abstract

Restoration programs face several challenges in degraded drylands and desert environments, such as high temperatures, soil salinity, water scarcity, loose soils with low water-holding capacity, and poor fertility. Seed-enhancement technologies (SETs) are proposed to improve soil physical and chemical properties, improve seed germination and seedling recruitment, and promote plant growth. SETs improve seed, seedling, and adult plant growth through three main approaches: adding materials to seed coats (seed coating), removing barriers of seed coats (seed scarification), and physiologically altering metabolites through priming (seed priming). These three main approaches (categories) are further divided into several other subcategories. This review aims to define the general categorization of SETs, adopt the proper SETs for arid lands, and indicate the benefits of SETs to overcome the biotic and abiotic barriers in agricultural systems and the ecological restoration of degraded dryland ecosystems. In general, integrating different seed-enhancement technologies (SETs) for rehabilitating degraded lands with a mixture of seeds from various species is recommended, especially since some technologies tend to be species-specific.

Keywords

• degraded dryland rehabilitation
• seed-enhancement technologies
• sustainable restoration
• seed coating
• seed priming
• seed scarification