Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• A. Pasandi Pour ¹
• H. Farahbakhsh ²

¹ Ph.D student, Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran; Member of Young Researcher Society

² Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Shahid Bahonar University, Kerman, Iran

Abstract

Higher plants are self-supporting organisms that can build their organic molecular compounds from mineral nutrients absorbed from the environment. Therefore, sufficient access to the optimum level of nutrients in the environment is very important. The main objective of this study was to determine the nutritional requirements of different ecotypes of henna (Lowsonia inermis L.) as a medicinal- industrial plant (Bam, Shahdad and Roodbar) based on nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N: K: P, 0: 0: 0, 100: 50: 50 , 200: 100: 100, 300: 200: 150 Kg ha^-1) in Kerman climatological condition. The results showed that the interaction of ecotype × fertilizer was significant only for leaf and total dry yield at the probability level of 5%. Mean comparison of this interaction showed that all three examined ecotypes had the highest leaf dry yield in the fertilizer ratio of 300: 200: 150 and did not have a significant difference with each other. The effect of ecotype was significant only on net photosynthesis and stomatal conductance and the highest mean of these traits belonged to the Shahdad ecotype. In this study, the simple effect of fertilizer treatment was significant for all traits studied except for specific leaf area and specific leaf weight. The highest mean of leaf area index, net photosynthesis and stomatal conductance was recorded for the 300: 200: 150 fertilizer ratio, while in the case of transpiration rate and crop growth rate there was no significant difference between 300: 200: 150 and 200: 100: 100 combination treatments. In general, in order to achieve maximum crop growth rate and suitable leaf area index to produce the highest leaf dry yield of henna in Shahdad and Roodbar ecotypes, the fertilizer ratio of 300: 200: 150, and in the Bam ecotype, the fertilizer ratio of 200: 100: 100 under similar conditions of this study seems to be appropriate.

Keywords

• Growth analysis
• transpiration rate
• Growth index
• yield
• nutritional requirement