Mitigating the adverse effects of salinity stress on lavender using biodynamic preparations and bio-fertilizers
Seyed Ahmad Khatami Pourang Kasraie Meysam Oveysi Hamid Reza Tohidi Moghadam Farshad Ghooshchi
Abstract
Sustainable agriculture involves different environmental methods of farming that cause the production of crops by conserving natural resources and preserving biodiversity. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of biological fertilizers and biodynamics on some characters of lavender under salinity stress. The experiment was performed as a factorial in a completely randomized design with three factors including four levels of biological fertilizers (i.e., control, Azotobacter, Azospirillum, and a combination of Azotobacter and Azospirillum), three levels of biodynamic (BD; i.e., control, BD compost, and BD preparations), and three concentrations of salinity stress (i.e., 0, 50, and 100 mM). The results showed that plant height (PH), stem length (SL), root length (RL), fresh weight (FW), dry weight (DW), relative water content (RWC), chlorophyll a (Chla), chlorophyll b (Chlb), total chlorophyll (TChl), and essential oil yield (EOY) were significantly decreased by salinity stress (P < 0.01). According to the results, the interaction effect of the BD preparations with Azotobacter bacteria was the most effective treatment for significant enhancement of FW, DW, RWC, and EOY under salinity stress. Also, the interaction effect of BD preparations with Azospirillum was the best treatment to enhance the PH, SL, and RL under salinity stress. Based on the results, it is suggested that the interaction of the BD preparations and bio-fertilizers could be applied as a salt alleviator to enhance the EOY.
Conclusions
In the present study, an environmentally friendly approach for alleviating the adverse effects of salinity on different characters of lavender by the BD and the BF was investigated. According to the results, the interaction effects of the BD preparations with Azotobacter and, or Azospirillum, were the best treatments to mitigate the adverse effect of salinity stress. These alleviation effects of the two factors could be due to 1) the nutrition value of the BD preparations and many bacterial ...