Szechuan peppers are extensively used as a spice and in traditional medicine in Asia, primarily because of its active compounds, sanshools (S). However, there is only limited mention in agriculture, and there are no papers reporting its use as an herbicide safener. In this study, we provide the first evidence that S can effectively alleviate rice-seedling injury from metolachlor (M). We observed that the M-treated (0.25 mu M) rice seedlings, which were 56.0%, 66.0%, and 57.0% of the non-treated control in shoot height, root length, and fresh biomass, respectively, were recovered by S to 93.1%,...
