Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 MSc Student of Medicinal Plants, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Iran
2 Associate Professor, Department of Agronomy, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zabol
Abstract
Drought is one of the most important limiting factors of plants growth which limits about 25 percent of arable lands production over the world. To investigate the effect of drought stress and phosphorus and zinc fertilizer levels on the quantitative properties and essential oil content of German chamomile (Matricaria recutita cv. Gural), a split plot factorial experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications at Research Farm of University of Zabol in 2013. Treatments consisted of three irrigation levels (75% (control), 50% (mild stress) and 25% of field capacity (severe stress)) as main plots, and factorial combinations of three triple superphosphate fertilizer CaH4P2O8 levels (0, 150, and 300 kg ha-1) and two zinc sulphate fertilizer ZnSO4(H2O) levels (0 and 30 kg ha-1) as sub plots. Some traits such as plant height, number of flowers per plant, flower diameter, fresh and dry flower yield, root length and essence yield were measured. The results showed that drought stress significantly reduced values for all morphological traits, except root length. However, no significant mild stress effect was observed for essential oil content. The application of 150 kg P fertilizer ha-1 and 30 kg Zn fertilizer ha-1 increased essential oil content and values for morphological traits. The application of high amount of P fertilizer (300 kg ha-1) had negative effects on chamomile yield. In general, the results of this experiment showed that the application of 150 kg P fertilizer ha-1 and 30 kg Zn fertilizer ha-1 under mild stress (50% of field capacity) can improve essential oil content in German chamomile.
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