ABSTRACT
Environmental stresses have adverse effects on plant growth and productivity, which reduce and limit the production of agricultural crops, and are predicted to become more severe and widespread in decades to come. This chapter provides a state-of-the-art overview of the mitigating effects of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) on plants sown under environmental (abiotic and biotic) stresses. It considers static and alternating magnetic fields (MFs) and pulsed fields (PEMFs) ranging from 1.5 μT up to 800 mT in the range of extremely low frequencies (0–300 Hz). MFs have exhibited a mitigating effect on drought, salinity, ultraviolet light, heavy metal toxicity, high temperatures, pathogens, bacteria, fungi and viruses by improving seed vigour, plant growth, water relations, photosynthesis, accumulation of biomass and concentration of defence secondary metabolites, and reducing free radicals and oxidative stress due to activation of plant defence mechanisms.
