Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
student Shahed University Department of Agronomy, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran;
2
asissitans prof Shahed University Department of Agronomy, Shahed University, Tehran, Iran;
3
Asociate Shahed University Iranian Academic Center for Education, Culture & Research (ACECER), Institute of Medicinal Plants Research, Tehran, Iran;
Abstract
Water and soil salinity limit crop production in arid and semi arid areas. Evaluation of salt tolerance of medicinal plants is important, particularly, for their cultivation in saline areas. To evaluate the effect of salinity of water and soil on chamomile plants yield, a greenhouse experiment was conducted using completely randomized design with five levels of water salinity including control, 3.5, 6.5, 9.5 and 12.5 dS.m-1 in three replications. The study was conducted in the Research Greenhouse of Biology Department of Shahed University, Tehran. In this study, parameters including morphological attributes, proline and protein content, plant content of Na, K, Ca, and Cl, percentage of essential oil and Chamazulene were evaluated. The results showed that, with increasing salinity, growth parameters of chamomile plants decreased significantly. A change in the amount of secondary metabolites was significant as compared with the control, in which salinity decreased essential oil (35.23%) and increased chamazulene percent (26.31).Compared with the control plant, amount of NA+ in stem (54.34%) and root (60%) and also Cl- in stem (68.42%) and root (76.19%), of chamomile plants increased with increasing salinity levels, thereby decreasing the absorption of Ka and Ca elements by chamomile. The results showed that cultivation of medicinal plants like chamomile, which are relatively tolerant to salinity, helps in reclamation and improvement of saline soils and can lead to high crop yield with a relatively good quality.
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