Seed enhancement technologies are currently being tested in a variety of disciplines, such as agriculture, horticulture, forestry and restoration. The last comprehensive review undertaken on seed enhancement technologies was completed over ten years ago and focused on agricultural and horticultural applications only.
Our aim was to review the international literature on seed enhancement technologies over the last 10 years (2010 – 2019) in order to understand a) which technologies are being researched b) what industries are using these technologies and c) what issues they are attempting to alleviate with these technologies.
Firstly, we had to clearly define what a seed enhancement technology is: this included any categories and subcategories. This was more difficult than first anticipated, as many definitions were over ten years old, and new technologies have been developed. This also meant that two new categories (flash flaming and extruded pelleting) were included and one previous category (conditioning) removed.
Results/Conclusions
Initially, the literature search, using a variety of relevant search terms, of peer-reviewed journal articles produced over 3000 hits from Scopus and Web of Science. This has been reduced to approximately 600 through removing irrelevant papers and articles that did not fall into our definition or categories, such as those that solely target seed dormancy break.
All data from the literature review is currently being collated and preliminary results indicate application of seed enhancement technologies are still predominantly within the agricultural industry (ca. 65%), however many more industries are now harnessing these technologies, for example restoration, conservation, rangeland management, forestry and bioenergy. Preliminary findings also illustrate that seed enhancement technologies, in particular priming (ca. 60% of cases), are being applied to a variety of situations including drought, salinity, pathogen occurrence, seed storage and poor germination, among others. The results will help to inform restoration practice by providing a comprehensive overview of how various seed enhancement technologies have been used, and of which technologies have been utilised in different situations.