Iranian Journal of Field Crop Science
Year:2018 | Volume:49 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:21

To evaluate the effects of different concentrations of salinity (control and 12 dS m-1) on morphological and physiological aspects of 10 alfalfa cultivars, an experiment was conducted using a randomized complete block design with factorial treatments in three replications. The results showed that salinity stress significantly reduced dry matter, K+/Na+ ratio and shoot and root K+ concentrations. The sodium concentration of the plants increased with salinity stress, and the salt tolerant cultivars showed lesser sodium transfer into their tissues resulting in a higher shoot and root K+/Na+ ratio compared to susceptible cultivars. K+ concentration in shoot as well as shoot K+/Na+ ratio had significant positive correlations with shoot dry matter of 0. 762** and 0. 835** respectively. On the other hand there was a significant negative correlation between shoot dry matter and shoot Na+ concentration (-0. 831), showed the highest significant correlation with shoot dry matter. Therefore, it seems that among the traits studied, the Na+ concentration in the shoot may be considered as an appropriate indicator for selection of salt tolerant alfalfa cultivars. The observed negative correlation between sodium concentration and the chlorophyll content (-0. 551) indicate that the plant metabolism has been adversely affected by salinity stress.

Drought stress is one of the major environmental stresses which has negative effects on all developmental stages of plants especially seed germination stage. To evaluate the effects of drought stress on seed germination characteristics of common bean genotypes, 40 genotypes were tested in petri dishes containing polyethylene glycol 6000 with concentration equal to 0,-4,-8 and-12 bar, in factorial experiment using CRD design with three replications in year 1393. The results showed that drought stress decreased rate and percentage of germination, radice and caulice lengths, fresh and dry weight of radices, and fresh and dry weight of caulice. To study biochemical processes in germination stages, genotypes 18, 25, and 28 and commercial variety of Yas were screened for polyethylene glycol 6000 with concentration equal to 0,-4,-8 and-12 bar. By evaluating of the studied traits and indices, with considering physiological and biochemical characteristics, it could be conclude that genotype 1189 was drought tolerant one in seedling stage in comparison to the rest of genotypes and Yas as a check variety.

In order to study effects of various levels of nitrogen and sulphur fertilizers on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of castor bean (Ricinus communis L. ), an experiment was done in 2015 at reaearch farm, agricultural faculty of Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University, Tabriz-Iran. Experiment was conducted as a factorial based on randomized complete block design with three replications. Treatments were 4 levels of nitrogen (0, 50, 100 and 150 kg ha-1) and 5 levels of sulphur (0, 20, 40, 60 and 80 kg ha-1). Results indicated that maximum biological and seed yield, seed oil percentage and yield and appropriate percentage of seed crude protein obtained from applying 100 and 150 kg nitrogen per hectare. In contrast, application of 40 kg sulphur ha-1 was enough to reach maximum amounts in seed yield, HI, seed oil percentage and oil yield. Application of sulphur fertilizer had not significantly effect on seed crude protein. Maximum agronomic efficiency of nitrogen and sulphur was achieved when nitrogen and sulphur were applied at a rate of 150 and 40 kg ha-1 (10. 73 and 9. 17 kg/kg, respectively). Interaction effects of nitrogen and sulphur showed that applying 150 kg nitrogen by 60 kg sulphur ha-1 resulted in the highest biological yield, seed and seed oil yield in castor bean. The overall conclusion of this experiment showed that presence of nitrogen and sulphur around the castor bean roots can cause an incease in leaf area, photosynthesis and biomass during the growing season, seed and oil yield at the end of the growing season.

To study the efficiency of salt-tolerant plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria on salt resistance of wheat plant (Triticum aestivum L) at vegetative growth stage, some isolated strains from the rhizosphere of halophyte plant which were collected from the deserts of four provinces (Isfahan, Yazd, Golestan and Hormozgan) of Iran. All strains were screened on their ability as salt tolerant, phosphate solubility, Auxin, siderophore and hydrogen cyanide (HCN) production. 10 isolates from a total of 50 isolates were salt tolerant to 5-20 percent salinity and have plant growth promoting (8 isolates were able to solubilize insoluble phosphate and 6 isolates produced Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA). Only two isolates produced siderophore and none of the isolates had the ability to produce cyanide hydrogen. Effects of 10 salt tolerant bacteria and two salt treatments (zero and 100 mM NaCl) on the initial phase of vegetative growth stage of wheat seedlings under 100 mM NaCl was investigated. The effect of PGPR on root and shoot dry weight, total dry weight, the amount of ethylene on Ghods wheat in saline conditions showed that the inoculation with selected bacteria in modulating the negative effects of salinity on growth period of wheat has been effective. Total dry weight (261%), shoot (390%) and root dry weight (270%) increased compared with control treatment and decreased levels of ethylene (24%) in salinity.

Today crop simulation models are as a developed tools for understanding and analyzing how soil, plant and atmosphere affecting crop growth and development. This study was conducted in order to evaluate WOFOST model in maize (Zea mays L. ) yield production in summer cropping system under sub-tropical conditions in Jiroft region, Iran at 2012 and 2013. Model input database includes the climate data (daily parameters of solar radiation, temperature and rainfall), plant data (time of germination, flowering and maturity, grain yield and dry matter) and soil data (physical and chemical soil properties). Plant variables of model include phenological stages, dry matter production, yield and biomass collected from field which performed at different planting dates and genotypes. At the next step, model was calibrated and evaluated with field data. The results showed RMSE, for grain yield, biomass and harvest index were 9. 06, 4. 24 and 10. 11, respectively. The model efficiency coefficient (E) for grain yield, biomass and harvest index was 0. 99, 0. 87, and 0. 82, respectively. Therefore, these results presented high precision of model simulation. The results of WOFOST evaluation showed that the efficiency of model is good for maize summer cropping system under tropical climatic conditions of Jiroft region.

The kind of population, climate and density have a significant influence on the various properties of the Milk Thistle. Therefore, the impact of two temperate and cold climate on the four native populations collected from Shush, Poldoktar, Khorramabad and Aleshtar and a cultivar were evaluated as a randomized complete block design in a few years and places. As Well as an experimental was performed in the form of Split plot includes three different densities of 6, 8 and 10 plants/m2 as subplots and populations of Milk Thistle as main plots for two years from 2014-2015. The results showed that the climate had significant impact on traits such as plant height, grain yield and Silybin. Results of the interaction effects showed that the maximum amount of Silymarin (21 mg. g) and Silybin (4. 2 mg. g) was obtained in native population of Aleshtar and in the cold region. Also the highest of plant height, grain and biological yield was obtained at density of 8 plants/m2 but the density did not effect on the amount of Silymarin.

Autumn planting leads to improve the yield of cool season crops, however there is little information about the cold tolerance in Iranian faba bean landraces for autumn planting. For this purpose a study was conducted as factorial, based on completely randomized design with four replications under controlled conditions and two faba bean landraces (Boroujerd and Neyshabour) exposed to freezing temperatures (0,-4,-8,-12,-16,-20,-24° C) in the fall and winter of 2015 at Research Center for Plant Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Results showed that decreasing temperature leads to the increasing EL% in all organs, however decreasing temperature hadn't significant effect on EL% up to-12° C in leaf and meristem and EL% increased with reducing the temperature to reached to the maximum in-20° C, While in stem EL% increasing was started from-8° C and reached to the maximum in-16° C. In both of Boroujerd and Neyshabour landraces, stem had the highest LT50el (-12. 9 and-12. 1, respectively), while it was-16. 7 and-15. 6° C in leaf and-16. 0 and-16. 8° C in meristem of two mention landraces, respectively. Although there was negative and significant correlation between the EL% of faba bean organs with SU%, but leaf and stem in Neyshabour landrace in similar LT50su with Boroujerd landrace (-13. 6° C) had more EL%, while it was further in the meristem of Boroujerd landrace. Two faba bean landraces showed ability to tolerate freezing temperatures up to-12° C in controlled conditions.

Selecting an appropriate variety considering the conditions of each region is an agricultural solution to achieve a desirable performance of plants in drought stress conditions. For this purpose, an experiment was conducted in a split plot arrangement based on randomized complete block design with three replications in Moghan plain at 2015 and 2016 years. Main-plot was Normal irrigation, cutting irrigation during vegetative growth stage, cutting irrigation during flowering stage and cutting irrigation during growth of fruit. Cultivars included Super Bita, 08 and Matin as a sub-plot. The results of mean comparisons of data demonstrated that cutting irrigation decreased growth and yield of all cultivars as much as 11 items than normal irrigation treatment. Also, the highest yield (69. 46 ton per hectare) and yield components (Number fruit per each plant: 61. 66, Average fruit weight: 220g, Fruit diameter: 5. 6 cm and Biomass: 73. 68 ton per hectare) observed in 08 economic cultivar under normal irrigation and the lowest values for these traits were obtained in Matin cultivar at cutting irrigation in flowering and fruit growth sages. Also, about morphological traits (Plant height, Stem diameter and the number of lateral branches) the lowest values observed in Matin and Super Bita under cutting irrigation during the growth stages. Therefore, 08 was the best variety (according to the results of traits related to yield, yield components and morphological traits in both of normal irrigation and cutting irrigation conditions) and Matin was the most sensitive variety to cutting the irrigation in Moghan plain.

Pre-harvest sprouting is one of the main factors that reducing the rice grain yield and quality in humid weather condition with raining at harvest time. Thirty four local and improved rice cultivars were evaluated for pre-harvest sprouting and some related characteristics to this trait at in vivo condition. Analysis of variance results indicated that the differences between rice genotypes were significant for pre-harvest sprouting and some other traits of grain. Genotypic and phenotypic correlation coefficients of pre-harvest sprouting with alpha amylase activity were positive, this result showed that the alpha amylase activity had significant effect on pre-harvest sprouting. All rice cultivars classified into three groups by cluster analysis using ward method. First group included 24 cultivars and second and third groups included 4 and 6 cultivars respectively. In total, cultivars of the first and third groups had the lowest of pre-harvest sprouting rate, so they were resistant to germination before harvest and the cultivars of second group had the highest of pre-harvest sprouting rate, so they were sensitive to germination before harvest. Results of this experiment showed some local rice cultivars such as Domsefid and Hashemi, with high resistance to pre-harvest sprouting could potentially be used in breeding programms.

Is spite of wide uses of the Allium leaves, there are paucity of information about the composition of essential oils in the fresh leaves. In this study, composition of essential oil is evaluated in four species of the genus (Subgen. & Sect. Allium) using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The results showed that the quality and quantity of the essential oil compositions were different in the studied species. Totally, 127 compounds were detected, among those, 68, 21, 29, 31 were found in A. fistulosum, A. iranicum, A. ampeloprasum, A. sativum, respectively. The main compounds in A. iranicum were Trisulfide, dipropyl (34%), 1, 2, 4-Trithiolane, 3, 5-diethyl (16%) while Diallyl disulphide (46%), Trisulfide, di-2-propenyl (11%) in A. sativum, Trisulfide, dipropyl (13. 43%), Diallyl disulphide (10. 38%) and Disulfide, dipropyl (8. 93%) in A. fistulosum and n-Hexadecanoic acid (11. 74%), Disulfide, dipropyl (10. 38%) and Trisulfide, dipropyl (8. 26%) in A. ampeloprasum. Overall, these results could be considered in future breeding programs of Allium species.

In order to evaluate the effect of herbicides on weed management and grain yield of different rice genotypes, an experiment was conducted at Rice Research Institute of Iran in Rasht during 2015-16 cropping season. The experiment was laid out in a split plot based on randomized complete block design with three replications. The treatments included five levels of weed management as 1-sequential application of pendimethalin followed by bensulfuron-methyl followed by cyhalofop-butyl; 2-sequential application of pretilachlor followed by bensulfuron-methyl followed by cyhalofop-butyl; 3-sequential application of pendimathelin followed by bensulfuron-methyl followed by propanilت 4-sequential application of pretilachlor followed by bensulfuron-methyl followed by propanil) along with 5-weedy check (without using herbicide) under natural weed flora as the main plots and ten rice genotypes as subplots. The results showed that the effects of genotype, weed management and their interaction was significant on all traits including weed biomass, plant height, yield components and grain yield of rice. Rice genotypes showed different responses in terms of evaluated traits at each level of weed management, which may be related to different genetic characteristics and competitive ability of genotypes. All herbicide treatments significantly reduced the weed biomass and increased grain yield of all genotypes compared with weedy checkت however sequential application of pretilachlor followed by bensulfuron-methyl followed by propanil is the best herbicide combination because of the least weed biomss and highest weed control efficiency and also the highest grain yield in all genotypes. It seems that this combination of herbicides can be a good alternative for hand weeding in order to reduce labor costs and more economical production of rice.

In order to evaluate the effect of three irrigation methods including surface irrigation (I1), daily sprinkler irrigation (I2), post-irrigation sprinkling with fresh water (I3), and different levels of salinity including 2. 9 (control), 3. 5, 4. 1, 4. 7 and 5. 3 dS. m-1 on agronomic and physiological traits of maize, a field experiment as factorial was carried out based on randomized complete block design with three replications during 2013-2014 in College of Irrigation science, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz. To apply salinity, a sprinkler irrigation system was used to establish minimum and maximum salinity levels on two parallel pipelines on both sides of field. Overlapping sprinklers led to establish a linear salinity gradient. Irrigation methods I3 and I2 with 4750 and 4160 kg h-1 had higher and lower amounts of grain yield, respectively. Water salinity significantly decreased stomatal conductance, chlorophyll index, leaf area index, K+ concentration and ratio of potassium to sodium, and higher reductions in these traits was observed in sprinkler irrigation. Daily sprinkler irrigation and surface irrigation showed the higher and lower Na+ concentration, 18. 2 and 15. 1 mg kg-1, respectively. These findings showed that, the threshold value of salinity for most traits and all irrigation methods was found to be ~4. 1 dS. m-1. With the given water resources limataion and saline water resources in Iran, post-irrigation sprinkling with fresh water might be used for irrigating row crops such as maize with a lower yeild loss.

In this experiment, physiological responses such as electrolyte leakage index (ELI) and relative expression of receptor-like kinase (RLK), ethylene response transcription factor (ERF) and vacuolar sorting receptor 6 (VSR-6) genes by Real-time PCR were studied in two genotypes of chickpea (Cicer arietimun L. ) which are different in cold sensitivity (tolerant, Sel96Th11439 and sensitive, ILC533) during cold stress (4° C) and TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) (5 mg/l). The results showed that ELI content increased under cold stress conditions in sensitive genotype compared to tolerant one, which indicated their genetic capacity to cold stress. During cold stress, TiO2 NPs caused a significant decrease in ELI, so that tolerant plants had lower ELI than sensitive ones. Therefore, the applied nanoparticles not only did not disturb the cell membrane under cold stress but also are caused to decline of damages. During cold stress, tolerant plants compared to sensitive ones, as well as in plants treated with TiO2 NPs compared to control plants showed significant increase in transcription levels of RLK, ERF and VSR-6 genes. An increase in expression of these genes is probably effective in the survival or recovery of plant because along with their increase, cell damages (ELI) resulted from reactive oxygen species (ROS) are decreased. Therefore, rapid and transient up-regulation of these genes particularly may be considered as functional markers in acclimation process in chickpea against cold stress. This finding that chickpea plants treated with TiO2 show less damage and more relative expression of genes involving in cold tolerance may be establish new usage for nanoparticles and lead to the stable yield under stress in these plants.

Sahendian savory (Satureja sahendica Bornm. ) is an Iranian endemic species from Lamiaceae family. This plant has been used in the food industry, cosmetics and medical preparations. In the current study, drought stress was induced at flowering stage based on a completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications in green house. Treatments were considered as five sampling times (control, 3, 6, 9 and 12 days) with three interval days that imposed after stopping irrigation. Soil volumetric moisture, and several physiological traits were measured, including leaf water potential, relative water content, pigments, soluble sugars, and proline. Metabolite profiling revealed that metabolites, such as rosmarinic acid, caffeic acid, ursolic acid, carnosic acid, soluble sugars and proline affected by drought stress and significantly increased by drought stress. The oil yield and thymol as the most valuable compound in the oil of Sahandian savory, was significantly increased, although, the quantitative content of some compounds in oil such as Carvacrole, γ-Terpinene and p-Cymene were decreased in response to drought stress. It can be concluded that in addition to osmoprotectant accumulation, savory plant improved its drought tolerance by changing in its secondary metabolites’ components in essential oil and in extract. In conclusion, the combination of metabolite profiling and physiological parameters contributed to a greater understanding of the mechanisms of savory plant’ s response at metabolomics level.

In order to evaluate the effect of calcium silicate on salt stress tolerance of four canola varieties, a factorial experiment was conducted as randomized complete block design arrangement in factorial with three replications at the Greenhouse Research Station of Agricultural Faculty of Tarbiat Modares University. Treatments were salt stress levels at the beginning of plant flowering to seed maturation including (control, 5 and 10 dS m-1), calcium silicate (control and 8 kg hec-1) and canola varieties Zarfam, Sarigol, Hayola and RGS. Application of calcium silicate was performed with irrigation the pots simultaneously. Results showed that Sarigol in control condition of stress and Zarfam in severe stress condition produced the highest and lowest seed yield with difference of 67 percent. Application of calcium silicate increased HI. In rate of 8 percent. Zarfam and Hayola dry weight was decreased 24 percent more than the Sarigol in severe stress condition. Severe salt stress decreased oil yield significantly in all of varieties, compared to the control. In general, calcium silicate application increased yield and some yield components. At severe salt stress, calcium silicate increased spad in Zarfam and Sarogol varieties.

Cotton is the most important fiber plant in the world, and plays very important role in employment and expansion of textile industries. Selection of a suitable cultivar for the West Azerbaijan region, which is the origin of cotton in Iran, will be especially important. This study was conducted with the aims of selecting and proposing cultivar/s for this province among cotton cultivars obtained from different breeding methods which revealed one or more traits in their superiority to commercial cultivars. In this study 8 cultivars were evaluated along with Varamin and Sahel as check cultivars in form of complete randomized block design with 4 replications in 2014, 2015 and 2016 (three cropping seasons). Combined analysis of variance results showed that the interaction between treatments effect in the year to end-yield, yield per plant and boll weight (α =0. 05), as well as the number of bolls per plant probability level (α = 0. 01) were significant. In stepwise regression analysis two variables, the number of bolls per plant and boll weight entered in the model. Path analysis showed that the number of bolls per plant had direct impact on yield (0. 9934) and indirect effect of boll weight and number of bolls per plant on yield was higher than the rest of properties (-0. 2178), and as well as principal components analysis for two main components of the high-value variables to determine, the number of bolls per plant is present in both components (0. 314 and-0. 350).