Majid Azizi; Zainab Safaei
Abstract
Introduction: The ever-increasing tendency to the use of medicinal plants in the world has grown concerns about their cultivation and production processes. As medicinal plants are more compatible with the nature, special interest and attention have recently been given to herb therapy, and use of medicinal ...
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Introduction: The ever-increasing tendency to the use of medicinal plants in the world has grown concerns about their cultivation and production processes. As medicinal plants are more compatible with the nature, special interest and attention have recently been given to herb therapy, and use of medicinal plants, being limited by the rise of pharmaceutical drugs, has become again common and widespread due to a number of reasons. In a sustainable agriculture system, application of the fertilizers which are nature friendly and suitable for plants is essential. This becomes more important when dealing with medicinal plants. Doing studies over the effect of nanopharmax and humic acid fertilizer on the plant, no research findings were obtained. So, in order to use less chemical fertilizers to prevent environmental pollution and encourage farmers to use more organic fertilizer, the present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of foliar application of humic acid and nano-pharmax fertilizer on the growth index, yield, yield components, essential oil content of N. sativa.
Materials and Methods: The experiment was conducted at Research Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, in 2012-2013. Land preparation was done in October. The land area was 80 square meters in which three blocks were designed. Eight plots were prepared within each block and each plot was planted with 4 lines. Furrow sowing operations were carried out on October 29. The plants were thinned in 4-6 leaf stage. First irrigation after planting, and subsequent ones were done every 7 days until the end of the growing season. No herbicides were applied in this plan and weeding was done by hand. The test treatments included humic acid and nanopharmax fertilizer with the levels of 0, 1, 3 and 6 mg per liter and 0 and 1 ml per liter, respectively. Fertilizer treatments was applied at the 8-10 leaf stage and continued once every two weeks, three times until after flowering. Foliar application continued until the plants were well treated with the solution. Plant height, leaf area index, dry weight, the number of branches, and the number of capsules per plant, the number of seeds per capsule, seed weight, seed yield, biological yield, essential oil content and yield were measured. The factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized block design with three replications. For the variance analysis of test data and drawing graphs, Excel and Minitab-16 software was used. All the averages data were compared at the 5 and 1% level, according to LSD test.
Results and Discussion: Different levels of humic acid imposed a significant effect on plant height, leaf area index, dry weight, the number of branches, and the number of capsules per plant, the number of seeds per capsule, seed weight, seed yield, biological yield, essential oil content and yield. Nano fertilizer application significantly increased the yield and essential oil content of Nigella sativa. Combined treatment at various levels had significant effect on dry weight, seed weight, biological yield and essential oil content and yield. According to the results, it can be concluded that the levels of 6 mg.l-1 of humic acid and Nano fertilizer (Farmks®) application the treatments were more effective in the increase of growth index, yield, yield components, essential oil content on other traits. The increased seed yield affected by humic acid and nano fertilizer can be attributed to the better vegetative growth, canopy development and consequently, more appropriate use of solar radiation and high photosynthesis. Using nano fertilizer, the time and speed of nutrients dispersion is coordinated by food requirements of the plant and thus, the plant will be able to absorb the maximum amount of nutrients and therefore, while reducing the leaching of nutrients and the crop yield increases.
Conclusion: The results showed that the use of nano fertilizer and humic acid can have positive effects on yield components and yield of N. sativa. Application of nano fertilizer and humic acid concentrations of 6 mg/l showed higher yield than other treatments. Intensifying the vegetative growth, these treatments increased the yield in N. sativa species. The combined treatments significantly increased the seed weight, growth index, seed yield, biological yield essential oil content and yield. Therefore, on the basis of the results of current study, it sounds like that nano fertilizer and humic acid can reduce the use of chemical fertilizers and environmental pollution. They also play an important role in achieving the goals of sustainable agriculture.
Masoud Azimi; Majid Azizi; Mohammad Farsi; Seyyed Hossein Nemati
Abstract
Introduction: Nowadays, mushroom and fungi are one of the most promising organisms which are used in biotechnology research (industry, medicine and agriculture). In the meantime, medicinal mushroom (mostly consumed as edible and medicinal products) have become a valuable biological resourcesin the pharmaceutical ...
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Introduction: Nowadays, mushroom and fungi are one of the most promising organisms which are used in biotechnology research (industry, medicine and agriculture). In the meantime, medicinal mushroom (mostly consumed as edible and medicinal products) have become a valuable biological resourcesin the pharmaceutical industry. Ganoderma the most legendary species of fungi in China with a long history dating back more than two thousand years.Ganodermalucidum (Fr.) Karst isa species belonging to the order of Aphyllophorales and family Basidiomycetes. The mushroom only growth on two or three types of trees among 10,000 known trees in the world and therefore is very rare. Ganoderma fruiting bodies and spores contain about 400 different bioactive compounds, which mainly includeTriterpenes, polysaccharides, nucleotides, sterols, steroids, fatty acids, proteins andpeptides. The mushroom polysaccharides, in addition to cancer treatment have showed antiviral properties, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive and prevent blood clotting. Tavana et al (1) in the evaluation of the use of some agricultural and forest wastes material for production of the mushroom stated that the residue are suitable as a helpful supplements for the activity. Gonzalez-Matute et al (11) used sunflower seed shell after oil extraction as a substrate. They concluded that the sunflower seed shell can be used as the main energy source in the substrate to grow the mushroom. There are different agricultural wastematerials which are good sources for growing mushroom in our country. The use of agricultural residues has attracted much attention in recent years. To the best of our knowledge there are a few published studieson the production of Ganoderma in the field condition. This study was performed on Reishi mushroom (Ganodermalucidum) to investigate the effects of different agricultural wastes on some morphological characteristics (growth rate, fresh weight and dry weight of mycelia, biological yield andcrude polysaccharide content) and polysaccharide contents of fruits.
Material and Methods:The main portion of the medium for production of Ganodermalucidum was wood chips as 5-10 mm long that supplemented with different agricultural wastes included black seed waste, tea waste, hazelnut waste, coconut waste, almond wasteand sesame waste, with two types of bran (wheat and rice). The statistical design was afactorial experiment on the basis of completely randomized design with threereplications. The treatment were included
Wood chips (80 percent) + black seed waste (10 percent) + rice bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + tea waste (10 percent) + rice bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + sesame waste (10 percent) + rice bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + hazelnut waste (10 percent) + rice bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + coconut waste (10 percent) + rice bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + black seed waste (10 percent) + wheat bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + almond waste (10 percent) + wheat bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + sesame waste (10 percent) + wheat bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + hazelnut waste (10 percent) + wheat bran (10 percent)
Wood chips (80 percent) + coconut waste (10 percent) + wheat bran (10 percent)
At first Wood chips soaked in water for 2 days until the their moisture reached60-65 then the other agricultural waste materials added on the basis of the treatments and the autoclavable propylene bags filledwith the mixture and autoclaved for 2 hours at 121ºC. After cooling, all bags inoculated with wheat spawn of the Ganodermalucidium and the bags putunderdark condition in growth chamber with 85-95% humidity at 30ºC. After full colonization of the bags, they transfer to the light condition (200-500 Lux) at 25ºC until primordial formation. Then the light increased to 500-700 Lux until fruiting body formation.
Results and Discussion: The results of analysis of variance showed that the use of these agricultural wastes had a significant effect (P≤0.01) on growth rate, fresh weight, dry weight of myceliumand biological yield. The highest growth rate of mycelia (on the basis of days after inoculation to medium colonized completely) was detected in media enriched with tea waste, hazelnut waste, coconut waste and almond waste (15.33, 16.67, 15.33 and 14.33 days, respectively). The lowest growth rate of mycelium was detected in media enriched with black seed waste (30.33 days). The substrate supplemented with almond waste produced the highest amount of fresh fruit weight (31 g) and the lowest fresh fruit weight (15.74 g) was detected under coconut waste treatment. The highest amount of fruit dry weight (6.51 g) observed under the almond waste treatment and the lowest one observed under the coconut waste treatment (3.75 g). The media supplemented with almond wastes produced the highest biological yield (7.75%), but tea waste, hazelnut waste and coconut waste treatments had the lowest biological yield (4.75, 5.32, 5.27 and 3.93 percent, respectively) without significant differences (P≤0.01).
Hajar Neamati Darbandi; Majid Azizi; Samane Mohammadi; Sajede Karimpour
Abstract
To investigate the effect of spraying with different concentrations of Vermiwash solution on the morphological traits, percentage and yield of essential oil of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.), this experiment was conducted as Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications in experimental ...
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To investigate the effect of spraying with different concentrations of Vermiwash solution on the morphological traits, percentage and yield of essential oil of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis L.), this experiment was conducted as Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with four replications in experimental field of Agricultural Faculty of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad (FUM). The treatments were included 4 different concentrations of Vermiwash solution (0, 3000. 6000 and 12000 ppm). At the flowering stage, morphological characteristics include of plant height, number of nod and internodes length, as well as total fresh weight, leaf area, dry weight of plant, yield and percentage of essential oil were determined. Results showed that there was a significant difference between different treatments in terms of plant height, number of node, internodes length, leaf area, and dry weight of plant and essential oil yield. The highest height (84.91 cm), number of node (23.20), leaf area (8853.52 cm2) and plant dry weight (174.31 g) related to vermiwash concentration of 3000 ppm and the longest internodes (7.02 cm) and essential oil yield (6 g/m2) related to concentration of 1200 ppm. In conclusion, application of 3000 ppm vermiwash was the superior among the all studied treatments that confirmed activity of plant growth regulators in low concentration of vermiwash and availability of nutrient in the solution.
