A preliminary study on the effects of ozone exposure on growth of the tomato seedlings

A study was conducted to evaluate the consequence of application of ozone for a diminutive period repeatedly on tomato seedlings to enhance their biomass. To study the kinetics of these stress-induced growths in more detail we used short pulses (2 min) of ozone (O3) exposure at high concentrations as elicitor. The seedlings treated with different concentration of ozone (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 ppm) are referred to as T1, T2, T3 and T4 seedlings respectively. The seedlings treated with ambient air are referred to as control seedlings. Among the treatments, T2 seedlings have a positive effect of an increased leaf area, enlarged shoot size and root length on biomass production than T1, T3, and T4 seedlings relative to control seedlings. Although T3 seedlings show enlarged shoot length; the root length and leaf area was reduced than T2 seedlings. The T4 seedlings show greatly reduced root length, stunted shoot and shrunken leaf size than T1, T2 and T3 seedlings. Hence, only the T2 concentration of ozone affords 33% enhanced dry weight and strict biomass allocation to leaves, shoot and root. Further studies are needed to identify the mechanism of these preliminary conclusions.