To prevent fungal growth, mycotoxin and fungicide contamination in crops, while trying to minimize pre- or postharvest losses, and avoid poor germination or plant growth due to fungal diseases – it's crucial to develop and utilize environmentally friendly food production and processing technologies. One such innovative method is cold plasma. In our study, we investigated the effects of cold oxygen or nitrogen plasma on the germination and fungal community structure of Tartary buckwheat seeds with the aim of identifying the most optimal gas (or gas mixture) and exposure time to cold plasma. However, the results of our research did not indicate any positive effects on improving germination of Tartary buckwheat seeds. On the contrary, longer treatments resulted in a statistically significant (p < 0.05) decline in germination rates and a prolonged mean germination time. The least detrimental effect was observed in treatments where only nitrogen was used as the working gas. Overall, we isolated fungi from 11 genera, classified into 8 families. Alternaria, Epicoccum, Fusarium and Pseudopithomyces, which accounted for 90 % of all isolated fungi, were present in all treatments. In contrast to the findings of other authors, we did not observe an impact on fungal frequency or diversity in our study, however, in one of the treatments, ¾ O2 for 90 s, we observed a statistically significant decrease in fungi-infected seeds and a reduction in the average number of morphotypes per seed.
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