• Carbon nanotube and hydro-priming effects on pea seeds are studied. • 4D swept-source Optical Coherence Tomography and fluorescence methods are used. • Depth-resolved structural and biospeckle analysis is performed. • Co-occurrence matrix and pointwise correlation metrics quantified internal activity. • Enface and axial OCT activity maps distinguished primed from unprimed seeds. • Carbon nanotube primed seeds showed consistently higher temporal speckle activity. With rapid advancements in nanotechnology, seed nano-priming gained significant attention with respect to enhancement of plants resilience towards a variety of stresses. In this work, we checked the potential of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and chlorophyll fluorescence for analysis of the effect of Pluronic P85 grafted single-walled carbon nanotubes and hydro priming on gemination of pea ( Pisum sativum var. RAN-1) seeds. We used a swept-source OCT system to acquire volumetric data in time (4D data) and to perform structural and biospeckle analysis of these carbon nanotubes and hydro-primed seeds grown on wet filter paper and in soil with respect to untreated control seeds. We estimated co-occurrence matrix parameters and intensity-based pointwise correlation function for statistical evaluation of the general biological activity inside the seeds. Examination of activity maps not only as axial scans but also at different depth (within the scope of the imaging system) through enface scans showed clear distinction of different treatments, thus demonstrating the OCT efficiency in non-destructive analysis of seeds and their response to external agents. Chlorophyll fluorescence provided valuable information; however, compared with this method, the OCT technique proved to be more powerful in detecting alterations in biological activity between different treatments.
Viqar et al. (Fri,) studied this question.