Applications of plant responses to sound in biotechnology and agriculture

Sound has been identified as a mechanical stimulus that gives rise to various physiological and molecular changes in plants: promote seed germination and plant growth (in vivo and in vitro), induce stress responses (biotic and abiotic), induce changes in the concentrations of different plant compounds, induce mutations, facilitate genetic transformation, etc. Some of these changes may have important benefits at different scales: research, agriculture, biotechnology or food processing. Here, we summarize the possible applications of sound treatments and the pros and cons of its application.This work is part of a Explora project participated by the members of the CRAG’s Program of Plant Metabolism and Metabolic Engineering and funded by the Spanish MINECO (BFU2013-50058- EXP). I would like to acknowledge the financial contribution to the research activities by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the “Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D” (SEV-2015-0533 and CEX2019-000902-S), and by the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya.Peer reviewe