Effect of cold plasma on chickpea seed germination and its color changes using neural fuzzy modeling

Today, various technologies are used in the field of agriculture. Plasma technology is one of methods that can improve germination without harming the seeds. In this paper, the aim is to investigate the effect of cold plasma based on corona discharge on germination of Adel, Mansur and Azad chickpea varieties. The results showed that the seeds of Adel and Azad varieties in 30 seconds cold plasma treatment and Mansour variety in 60-seconds cold plasma treatment, had longer root length than the control samples. After statistical analysis, it was found that root length under the same conditions, during cold plasma treatment periods, had a significant difference at the level of 5% compared to the control. On the other hand, by examining the components of color index in the tested samples, no significant change was observed in the samples. The most changes in the ratio of color difference index in samples of Adel variety with 60 seconds of exposure to cold plasma compared to samples with 30 seconds of exposure were calculated to be 1.48%. Also, to observe the color changes of the samples due to plasma, a third degree model was designed in a neural fuzzy environment in 8 regions, which showed minor color changes after learning, with an error of less than 0.01. The results showed that the use of cold plasma treatment can be effective on germination and improve the initial growth of chickpea seeds without causing side effects.