Use of Biostimulants to Improve Ozone Tolerance in Cereals

Ozone (O3) formed in the troposphere, one of the major threats to plant health, critically affects the various phases of the physiological processes of plants, resulting in a loss of plant productivity. Cereals as major contributors to the feeding of the human population are considered sensitive or moderate sensitive to O3 stress. O3 damage caused by the increasingly emerging impacts of climate change is among the main global problems that are expected to affect crop production more severely in the near future, and therefore, many researchers have focused on innovative strategies to reduce the negative impacts of O3 stress. Plant biostimulants (PBs), relatively newly classified compounds, have been utilized for modifying/regulating the physiological process of plants to alleviate stress-driven limitations or promote growth. There are well-known synthetics and natural compounds that biostimulate plants for better performance and improved O3 tolerance. PBs or compounds that act as PBs offer great potential to achieve the yield targets in cereals under the stress of O3 in a much more efficient and relatively sustainable way; the types and properties of which have been tested in cereals so far are discussed in this chapter. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022