Improvement and breeding
Majid Rajaie; Mehdi Khiri
Abstract
Background and Objective: Drought stress is one of the most critical factors influencing agricultural production, particularly in irrigated farming systems in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Organic fertilizers can mitigate the detrimental effects of drought stress on medicinal plants. Developing ...
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Background and Objective: Drought stress is one of the most critical factors influencing agricultural production, particularly in irrigated farming systems in arid and semi-arid regions of the world. Organic fertilizers can mitigate the detrimental effects of drought stress on medicinal plants. Developing new management strategies is essential to alleviate the negative impacts of drought. Among the most effective approaches to plant nutrition management under drought conditions is the use of organic fertilizers, which significantly contribute to sustainable agriculture advancement and expansion. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of different organic fertilizers in the cultivation medium of black seed and their influence on physiological traits and seed yield under various irrigation intervals.Methodology: This experiment was conducted using a completely randomized block design with two factors and three replications. The first factor included four irrigation regimes: 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% depletion of field capacity moisture. The second factor involved planting beds composed of different organic materials at 5% (w/w) of pot soil, including normal soil (control), normal soil + biochar, normal soil + compost, normal soil + vermicompost, and normal soil + animal manure. Each pot contained six kilograms of soil. Initially, the soil was passed through a 2 mm sieve, and organic fertilizers were manually mixed with the soil in each pot at a rate of 5% by weight. On February 19, black seeds were sown in plastic pots, with fifteen seeds per pot. Two weeks after sowing, at the three-leaf stage, seedlings were thinned to six plants per pot. After planting, all pots were irrigated uniformly. Upon the emergence of black seed plants and at the four- to five-leaf stage, irrigation treatments were applied based on the designated moisture depletion levels (20%, 40%, 60%, and 80%). Measured plant responses included leaf nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content; ion leakage; relative water content; malondialdehyde concentration; chlorophyll a and b content; and catalase and peroxidase enzyme activities. Finally, variance analysis was conducted, and means were compared using Duncan’s multiple range test.Results: The findings indicated that increased drought stress led to reduced nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content in the leaves. Conversely, the highest concentrations of these nutrients were observed under treatments with normal soil + vermicompost or animal manure. Rising drought stress also reduced leaf relative water content; specifically, irrigation at 40%, 60%, and 80% moisture depletion led to significant reductions of 7%, 15%, and 32%, respectively, compared to 20% moisture depletion. At 60% depletion, compost, vermicompost, and animal manure treatments significantly reduced ion leakage by 11.8%, 14.5%, and 12.2%, respectively. Under 80% depletion, compost, and vermicompost significantly decreased malondialdehyde levels by 15.2% and 17.8%, respectively, relative to the control. At 20% and 60% depletion, the highest total chlorophyll content was observed in normal soil combined with vermicompost, followed by animal manure and compost. Catalase and peroxidase activities increased progressively with drought severity. At 80% depletion, the dry weight of aerial parts increased by 46% and 56% in the animal manure and vermicompost treatments, respectively, compared to the control. Likewise, grain weight increased by 26% and 32% under these treatments at the same drought level.Conclusion: The results demonstrated that drought stress adversely affected black seed plants' nutrient concentration and physiological traits. Applying normal soil with vermicompost or animal manure effectively enhanced photosynthetic pigment levels, promoting plant growth. Compared to vermicompost and animal manure, biochar, and compost had a relatively lower impact on improving grain yield. Overall, vermicompost and animal manure are recommended for cultivating black seed under varying humidity conditions.
Agriculture and horticulture
Afsoon Rezaie Allolo; Azizollah Kheiry; Mohsen Sanikhani; Maliheh Yaghoobi
Abstract
Background and objectives: Digitalis purpurea L., the most well-known species of the Digitalis genus, is a biennial plant containing cardiac glycosides (0.3 to 0.4%) in its leaves. These glycosides are extracted and used as natural medicines for treating heart diseases, with no chemical ...
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Background and objectives: Digitalis purpurea L., the most well-known species of the Digitalis genus, is a biennial plant containing cardiac glycosides (0.3 to 0.4%) in its leaves. These glycosides are extracted and used as natural medicines for treating heart diseases, with no chemical substitutes available, making them widely utilized annually. In recent years, using amino acids and growth regulators as alternatives to chemical compounds has gained popularity for enhancing secondary metabolites, improving the quality and quantity of agricultural products, and promoting sustainable agriculture. This study investigates the biochemical and growth responses of D. purpurea to foliar applications of glutamic acid and benzyladenine under greenhouse conditions to evaluate their effects on morphophysiological characteristics, yield improvement, and their potential as environmentally friendly alternatives to chemical fertilizers.Methodology: A completely randomized design with three replications was conducted in the research greenhouse of the University of Zanjan to evaluate the effects of foliar applications of benzyladenine (0.5 and 1 mM) and glutamic acid (1 and 2 mM), along with a control treatment (distilled water). Seeds were initially planted in a seedling tray containing cocopeat and peat moss. At the four-leaf stage, three seedlings were transplanted into plastic pots filled with a culture medium of field soil, cocopeat, and perlite (1:1:3 ratio). Greenhouse conditions were maintained at average day and night temperatures of 25°C and 18°C, respectively, with 80% relative humidity. Seedlings were irrigated weekly with 100 mL of complete Hoagland solution. Foliar spraying with the treatments began after seedling establishment in late June and was repeated four times at 10-day intervals. Leaf samples were collected 10 days after the final application for laboratory analysis. Data were analyzed using SAS software (version 9), and means were compared using Duncan’s multiple range test at a 5% probability level.Results: The application of 1 mM benzyladenine resulted in the highest total chlorophyll content (1.95 mg/g fresh weight), antioxidant activity (36.02%), and peroxidase enzyme activity (1.14 U/mg protein per minute). The maximum total carotenoid content (0.14 mg/g fresh weight), total phenol (12.52 mg gallic acid/g fresh weight), total flavonoid (2.86 mg quercetin/g fresh weight), and nitrogen content (1.46%) were achieved with one mM glutamic acid. Additionally, one mM glutamic acid application led to the highest catalase enzyme activity (4.09 U/mg protein per minute), fresh weight (123.51 g), and dry weight (47.38 g).Conclusion: The findings suggest that applying glutamic acid and benzyladenine at varying levels can significantly enhance the biochemical and growth characteristics of Digitalis purpurea L.
Agriculture and horticulture
Z. Baharmast; M. Hassanpour Asil; M. B. Farhangi; A. Sahraroo
Abstract
Background and objectives: Pink evening primrose is one of the world's most well-known and economically valuable medicinal plant species. It has also been cultivated as an ornamental and medicinal plant in Iran. In addition, its seed oil is used in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and healthcare industries. ...
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Background and objectives: Pink evening primrose is one of the world's most well-known and economically valuable medicinal plant species. It has also been cultivated as an ornamental and medicinal plant in Iran. In addition, its seed oil is used in the pharmaceutical, food, cosmetic, and healthcare industries. Micronutrients and biofertilizers can enhance the quality of agricultural products. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate the effect of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and zinc foliar spraying on the nutrient uptake morphophysiological and biochemical characteristics of pink evening primrose.Methodology: This research was conducted on evening primrose for one year, from October 2022 to September 2023. For this purpose, evening primrose seeds were first grown for 120 days in greenhouse conditions in size 10 pots and then at the time of transplanting to the main pot, they were inoculated with Glomus intraradices arbuscular mycorrhizal species, and inoculation was carried out at two levels of inoculation and non-inoculation during the transfer of the seedlings of the main pot. This experiment was carried out factorially in a completely randomized design and foliar application of zinc element in zinc sulfate at three levels of zero (control), 3 and 5 mg/L in three replications at the eight-leaf stage. Before planting the plant, samples were taken from the soil mixture used, and the physicochemical test of the soil included The concentration of nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and biomass carbon elements. The examined traits include Morphological traits (wet and dry weight of shoot, number of flowers per stem, flower diameter, length of flowering period, number of leaves, number of capsules, number of seeds in capsule, number of lateral branches) and number of mycorrhizal spores in the soil and physiological traits including chlorophylls a, b and total, carotenoid, phenol and flavonoid and antioxidant and activity of catalase and peroxidase enzymes were evaluated in leaves.Results: The results showed that in the foliar treatment with 5 mg/l zinc sulfate, the number of flowers per plant, number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per plant, seed yield, number of internodes, number of secondary stems, fresh and dry weight of shoot and flavonoid phytochemical traits, antioxidant, catalase and peroxidase and in addition elements of phosphorus, zinc, boron, manganese, iron and copper were significantly different at the 1% probability level. Carotenoid, nitrogen and potassium elements were found to have a significant difference at the 5% probability level. The effect of inoculation treatment with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus on the traits of number of flowers per plant, number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per plant, seed yield, flower diameter, stem diameter, leaf area, number of leaves, fresh and dry weight of shoot, plant height and length flowering period and in addition, total chlorophyll, phenol, flavonoid, antioxidant and catalase and elements of nitrogen, zinc, boron, manganese, iron and copper were significantly different at the 1% probability level. The traits of the number of secondary stems, carotenoids, and peroxidase were significant at the 5% probability level. The interaction effect of foliar spraying treatments with zinc sulfate 5 mg/litre and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus on shoot weight and total chlorophyll at the 1% probability level, and the number of flowers, chlorophyll a, catalase and zinc element was observed to be significant difference at 5% probability level. The comparison between the treatments showed that the foliar treatment with zinc sulfate 5 mg/litre, along with the inoculation of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus, had the most significant effect on increasing the amount of flowering, seed yield and phenolic compounds and catalase and peroxidase enzymes.Conclusion: In general, it can be concluded that among the treatments used, foliar spraying treatment with zinc sulfate (5 mg/litre) along with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus can achieve high flower and seed yield by affecting the availability of nutrients and increasing vegetative growth. It can also increase the amount of chlorophyll and total carotenoid, flavonoid, antioxidant, catalase, and peroxidase of this valuable plant.
Biological effects of essential oils and extracts
S. Malekpur; S. Nosrati; B. Behboodian; J. Gholamnezhad; M. Armin
Abstract
In the present study, first, an in vitro experiment was conducted to study the effects of Thymus vulgaris L., Foeniculum vulgare Mill., Rosmarinus officinalis L., and Mentha piperita L. water extracts on reducing the growth of Fusarium rot disease factor of cucumber (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-cucumerinum ...
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In the present study, first, an in vitro experiment was conducted to study the effects of Thymus vulgaris L., Foeniculum vulgare Mill., Rosmarinus officinalis L., and Mentha piperita L. water extracts on reducing the growth of Fusarium rot disease factor of cucumber (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-cucumerinum (forc)) by the saturated paper disk method. According to the results, the water extracts of Th. vulgaris, F. vulgare, R. officinalis, and M. piperita at a concentration of 250 ppm with the inhibitory zone diameter of 24.66, 17.33, 11.66, and 10.33 mm, respectively, showed the highest antifungal activity compared to the control (the inhibitory zone diameter of 3.66 mm). Then, it followed by a greenhouse experiment to investigate the effects of Th. vulgaris and F. vulgare water extracts on the cucumber cv. Nagene treated with F. oxysporum. The water extract of Th. vulgaris at a concentration of 200 ppm with the disease index of 31% showed the greatest reduction in the disease symptoms compared to the infected control and the F. vulgare treatment with the disease indices of 82.66 and 42%, respectively. Study on the activity of polyphenol oxidase, β-1, 3-glucanase, and peroxidase enzymes under the greenhouse conditions showed that the activity of all three enzymes had an increasing trend. So that the activity of enzymes in the combined treatment of Th. vulgaris water extract (200 ppm) and pathogen increased respectively from 1.12, 1.11, and 0.27 ΔOD/min/mg protein on the first day after the inoculation to 5.25, 4.81, and 2.88 ΔOD/min/mg protein on the 12th day, and it had a significant difference with the control. Considering the results of this research, it was found that the water extract of Th. vulgaris, in addition to the direct fungicidal effect, could increase the activity of defense enzymes in the cucumber plants resulted in the host plant resistance induction against the pathogen.
Agriculture and horticulture
A. Hayati; M.M. Rahimi; A. Kelidari; S.M. Hosseini
Abstract
Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) seeds are used in the traditional medicine in many countries to prevent and treat many disorders and diseases including cough, asthma, nasal congestion, headache, toothache, intestinal worms, menstrual disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, and impotence. To study the effects ...
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Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) seeds are used in the traditional medicine in many countries to prevent and treat many disorders and diseases including cough, asthma, nasal congestion, headache, toothache, intestinal worms, menstrual disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, and impotence. To study the effects of humic acid and iron nanochelate on the content of osmotic protective osmolites including glucose, fructose, sucrose, proline, superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidase of medicinal plant black cumin under the drought stress conditions, an experiment was conducted as a split factorial based on the randomized complete block design with three treatments in three replications at the Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Station of Eqlid city during two crop years of 2018 and 2019. The main plot consisted of three levels of irrigation (50, 75, and 100% of available water) and sub-plots included humic acid (0, 250, and 500 mg l-1) and iron nanochelate (0, 1, and 2 g l-1). The results showed that the effects of irrigation, humic acid, and iron chelate treatments on the catalase, superoxide dismutase, glucose, and peroxidase content, irrigation treatments on the proline content, and irrigation and humic acid treatments on the sucrose and fructose content were significant. The content of all protective osmolites increased in the 50% drought stress treatment. The highest content of glucose, fructose, and sucrose was obtained in the 50% drought stress, 500 mg l-1 humic acid, and 2 g l-1 iron nanochelate treatment. Overall, based on the results of this experiment, the application of humic acid fertilizer (500 mg l-1) and iron nanochelate (2 g l-1) could be recommended to reduce the effects of drought stress on black cumin.
Improvement and breeding
H. Asgarian; V. Abdossi; E. Danaee; A. Ladan Moghadam
Abstract
Salinity stress is one of the most important factors in reducing the crop yield in the world. The application of humic acid along with selenium can improve the plant yield under salinity stress conditions by increasing the antioxidant capacity. To evaluate the effects of humic acid and selenium application ...
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Salinity stress is one of the most important factors in reducing the crop yield in the world. The application of humic acid along with selenium can improve the plant yield under salinity stress conditions by increasing the antioxidant capacity. To evaluate the effects of humic acid and selenium application under salinity stress conditions in Calendula officinalis L., a factorial greenhouse experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications in Islamshahr city in 2018. The experimental treatments included sodium chloride (0, 50, and 100 mg l-1), humic acid (0, 100, and 200 mg l-1), and selenium (0, 5, and 10 mg l-1) and their combined effects. The results showed that increasing the salinity significantly reduced the fresh and dry weight of shoots and roots and number of flowers per plant. The foliar application of 200 mg l-1 humic acid and 10 mg l-1 selenium improved carotenoids content of the petals and total chlorophyll of the leaves at all salinity levels. Also, with increasing the sodium chloride level up to 100 mg l-1, the amount of proline increased significantly. Meanwhile, the interaction treatments of humic acid and selenium had significant effects (P≤0.0.1) on improving the activity of superoxide dismutase and peroxidase enzymes at different salinity levels. The highest amount of essential oil (1.37%) was obtained in the interaction treatment of 200 mg l-1 humic acid and 10 mg l-1 selenium under salinity stress of 50 mg l-1 sodium chloride. In general, the results of this study showed that the foliar application of 200 mg l-1 humic acid and 10 mg l-1 selenium could be effective in reducing the negative effects of salinity stress on C. officinalis.
Kh. Ahmadi; H. Omidi
Abstract
Drought stress affects the morphology, physiology, and biochemistry of plants and will have major effects on agricultural production. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of drought on some physiological and grain yield properties of Balangu populations (Lallemantia royleana Benth.), in the ...
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Drought stress affects the morphology, physiology, and biochemistry of plants and will have major effects on agricultural production. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of drought on some physiological and grain yield properties of Balangu populations (Lallemantia royleana Benth.), in the Research Station of Shahed University. This study was conducted in a split-plot design based on randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications during 2014-2015. The experimental factors consisted of three different levels of drought stress at the flowering stage as main factors (applying soil water potential of -0.5, -6.5 and -9.5 atm), and Balangu populations including one population from Kurdistan and four populations from Esfahan province (Esfahan3, Esfahan5, Esfahan6, Esfahann) were considered as subplots. The traits studied included grain yield, one thousand seed weight, photosynthetic pigments content, proline content, total phenol content, membrane stability index (MDA), and peroxidase activity. According to the results, drought stress had significant effects on all traits except chlorophyll b content and chlorophyll a/b ratio. Population and its interactions showed a significant effect with all traits except anthocyanin content. Drought caused to the reduced content of photosynthetic pigments, membrane stability index, thousand grain weight and grain yield. With increasing drought stress, the lipid peroxidation enzymatic activity and non-enzymatic antioxidants such as phenolic content, carotenoids content, anthocyanins content, and proline content of tissue increased to induce drought tolerance. The highest grain yield with the mean of (312.77 kg/ha) and the highest phenolic content with an average of (14.02 mg/g FW) were recorded for the Esfahan3 population under relatively severe stress.
M. Ghorbanli; A. Alibabaee; M. Payvandi
Abstract
Hypericum perforatum L. is a valuable medicinal species. The plant geneus includes 17 species in Iran, but H. perforatum is the only valuable species.The species plays an essential role in the treatment of depression. In this study, Hypericum perforatum was treated with different concentrations of molybdenum ...
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Hypericum perforatum L. is a valuable medicinal species. The plant geneus includes 17 species in Iran, but H. perforatum is the only valuable species.The species plays an essential role in the treatment of depression. In this study, Hypericum perforatum was treated with different concentrations of molybdenum including (control, 0.1, 0.4, 0.8, 1.6 µΜ) in Hoagland solution at 6.8 pH and then samples were used to measure biochemical parameters. Molybdenum significantly increased proline content. The shoot catalase and ascorbate peroxidase activities increased in all treatments of molybdenum, but in root, it was reduced in higher concentrations. Shoot peroxidase activities increased by treatments of molybdenum, except at a concentration of 0.8µΜ. The increase in peroxidase activity was also observed in roots but it was reduced at higher concentrations. The malondealdehyde and molybdenum content increased in higher concentrations of molybdenum. Molybdenum content increased by increasing treated molybdenum. Therefore, molybdenum stress increased the proline content and peroxidase, catalase and ascorbate peroxidase activities, and toxicity symptoms were observed in high concentrations of molybdenum as lipid peroxidation. Data were analyzed by SPSS and mean comparisons was performed by Duncan's multiple range test. In each experiment, 3 replications were used.
M. Sakhayi; M.H. Assareh; A. Shariat; Gh. Bakhsi Khaniki; M. Matinizadeh
Abstract
In this study, allelophatic effects of Eucalyptus camaldulonsis Dehnh. were investigated on some growth parameters and quantitative and qualitative changes of peroxidase in wheat at greenhouse of research institute of forests and rangelands of Iran. Treatments included: control treatment, etanol extract ...
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In this study, allelophatic effects of Eucalyptus camaldulonsis Dehnh. were investigated on some growth parameters and quantitative and qualitative changes of peroxidase in wheat at greenhouse of research institute of forests and rangelands of Iran. Treatments included: control treatment, etanol extract of E. camaldulonsis leaf in three levels (3, 6, 12 g/lit), aqueous extract of E. camaldulonsis leaf in three levels (5%, 10%, 20%), fresh leaf of E. camaldulonsis in three levels (5, 10, 15 g), powderd dried leaves of E. camaldulonsis in three levels (5, 10, 15 g) and one-year seedlings of E. camaldulonsis. Wet and dry weight of the seedlings was measured as growth parameters. Comparison of different treatments showed that one-year seedlings of E. camaldulonsis had maximum significant effect in reducing wheat growth parameters due to root exudates. With increasing concentrations of ethanol and aqueous extracts, wet and dry weight and leaf surface area of wheat decreased while in treatments of fresh and powdered dried leaves, an increment was observed in dry weight and leaf area. Activity of peroxidase enzyme strongly increased in root treatment of E.camaldulonsis and showed new isoenzyme band compared to control treatment. Ethanol and aqueous extracts of Eucalyptus leaves increased peroxidase activity in wheat but no new isoenzyme band was observed and less affected in fresh and dry leaves of Eucalyptus.
