Ulva lactuca Extract and Fractions as Seed Priming Agents Mitigate Salinity Stress in Tomato Seedlings

The present study investigates the effect of Ulva lactuca extract as seed-priming agent for tomato plants under optimal and salinity stress conditions. The aims of this experiment were to assess the effect of seed priming using Ulva lactuca extract in alleviating the salinity stress tomato plants were subjected to, and to find out the possible mechanism of actions behind such a positive effect via means of fractionation of the crude extract and characterization. Salinity application decreased the plant biomass and altered different physiological traits of tomato. However, the application of Ulva lactuca methanol extract (ME) and its fractions (residual fraction (RF), chloroform fraction (CF), butanol fraction (BF), and hexane fraction (HF)) at 1 mg·mL^-1 as seed priming substances attenuated the negative effects of salinity on tomato seedlings. Under salinity stress conditions, RF application increased the tomato fresh weight; while ME, RF, and HF treatments significantly decreased the hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) concentration and antioxidant activity in tomato plants. The biochemical analyses of Ulva lactuca extract and fractions showed that the RF recorded the highest concentration of glycine betaine, while the ME was the part with the highest concentrations of total phenols and soluble sugars. This suggests that these compounds might play a key role in the mechanism by which seaweed extracts mitigate salinity stress on plants.