Optimizing water relations, gas exchange parameters, biochemical attributes and yield of water-stressed maize plants through seed priming with iron oxide nanoparticles.

Drought poses significant risks to maize cultivation by impairing plant growth, water uptake and yield; nano priming offers a promising avenue to mitigate these effects by enhancing plant water relations, stress tolerance and overall productivity. In the current experiment, we tested a hypothesis that seed priming with iron oxide nanoparticles (n-FeO) can improve maize performance under water stress by improving its growth, water relations, yield and biochemical attributes. The experiment was conducted on a one main plot bisected into two subplots corresponding to the water and drought environments.