International Journal of Horticulture, 2025, Vol.15, No.5, 242-256 http://hortherbpublisher.com/index.php/ijh 242 Review Article Open Access Enhancing Abiotic Stress Resilience in Horticultural Crops Through Seed Priming: A Comprehensive Review JoséLuis Castañares 1,2 1 Laboratorio de Fisiología Vegetal, Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad Nacional de Luján, Ruta 5 y Avenida Constitución, Luján, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2 Estación Experimental INTA AMBA, Udaondo 1695, Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires, Argentina Corresponding author: jcastanares@unlu.edu.ar International Journal of Horticulture, 2025, Vol.15, No.5 doi: 10.5376/ijh.2025.15.0025 Received: 05 Jun., 2025 Accepted: 22 Sep., 2025 Published: 25 Oct., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Castañares, This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Preferred citation for this article: Castañares J.L., 2025, Enhancing abiotic stress resilience in horticultural crops through seed priming: a comprehensive review, International Journal of Horticulture, 15(5): 242-256 (doi: 10.5376/ijh.2025.15.0025) Abstract Abiotic stresses such as drought, salinity, heat, and cold significantly limit productivity in horticultural crops. Seed priming has emerged as an effective pre-sowing strategy to enhance stress resilience by activating physiological and biochemical pathways that prepare seeds for adverse environments. This review synthesizes current knowledge on priming-induced cross-tolerance mechanisms in horticultural species, focusing on antioxidant activation, membrane stability, hormonal balance and osmotic regulation. Practical applications and case studies across a range of vegetables demonstrate improved germination, seedling vigor and stress adaptation through diverse priming agents. The review also examines the agronomic benefits and limitations of priming, highlighting the influence of genotypic variability and environmental interactions. Finally, it outlines future research directions, emphasizing the need for multifactorial studies and the integration of priming with microbiome-based approaches, gene editing, and cultivar selection. Overall, seed priming offers a scalable and sustainable tool to enhance crop performance under multi-stress conditions, with broad implications for climate-resilient horticulture. Keywords Seed priming; Abiotic stress tolerance; Horticultural crops; Cross-tolerance mechanisms; Sustainable agriculture 1 Introduction Horticultural crops, including fruits, vegetables, herbs and ornamentals, play a crucial role in ensuring global food and nutritional security, in addition to supporting rural livelihoods and the agroeconomies of both developing and developed countries. These crops are particularly sensitive to environmental fluctuations, making them highly vulnerable to abiotic stressors such as drought, salinity, heat, cold and waterlogging (Borgohain et al., 2019; Pandey et al., 2019). Such stress conditions severely affect seed germination, seedling vigor, and metabolic functioning, ultimately compromising yield quality and quantity. This vulnerability is further exacerbated by the increasing frequency, severity, and unpredictability of these stressors under the influence of climate change (Prasad et al., 2017). Therefore, improving the resilience of horticultural crops to abiotic stresses is critical for achieving sustainable agricultural development and climate-resilient food systems (Fahad et al., 2017). In recent years, seed priming has emerged as a pre-sowing strategy of high interest due to its ability to enhance stress tolerance without genetic modification or costly inputs. Seed priming refers to the controlled hydration of seeds to initiate pre-germinative metabolic processes, followed by re-drying before radicle protrusion (Paul et al., 2022). This controlled activation leads to faster and more uniform germination, improved seedling vigor and enhanced physiological preparedness to adverse environmental conditions (Singh et al., 2020). The growing interest in seed priming has led to a surge of research focused on its application across a diverse range of horticultural crops and agroecological contexts. Numerous studies have evaluated the effectiveness of various priming agents, including osmotic solutions, phytohormones, nanomaterials, and microbial biostimulants, in enhancing plant performance under stress (Jisha et al., 2013; de Oliveira and Gomes-Filho, 2016). Osmopriming and hormonal priming, in particular, have shown broad efficacy in improving drought, salinity and cold tolerance (Ulfat et al., 2017; Lei et al., 2021), while nanopriming has demonstrated potential in enhancing
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