Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Ph.D. Student of Ornamental Horticulture Department of Horticultural Science Shiraz university Shiraz, Iran
2 Department of Horticultural Science, Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Kerman, Iran
3 Ph.D. Student of Ornamental Plants, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
Abstract
There exist a lot of reports about the positive and significant effect of natural zeolite on vegetative and reproductive characteristics of plants such as cereals, vegetable transplants, ornamental tree and shrubs, bedding flowers, pot plants, turfgrass and cut flowers. However, in the relation to bulbous plants, there seems to be no report. Thus, this research was conducted to investigate the effects of natural zeolite on vegetative and reproductive characteristics of Narcissus tazetta L. cv. Shahla. The experiment was performed as a completely randomized design (CRD) with seven treatments (0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 g zeolite kg-1 soil mixture) and 4 replications. The results indicated that although there were significant differences between treatments in vegetative and reproductive characteristics such as flowering stem length, flowering stem fresh and dry weight, leaf area, floret length, leaf and root fresh weight, root depth and bulblet number, the only positive effect of zeolite was observed in root fresh weight and root depth which was obtained with 10 g.kg-1, significantly different compared to control. In other measured characteristics such as flowering stem diameter, leaf and floret number, leaf and root dry weight did not show a significant difference between treatments. In general, considering the obtained results, 10 g zeolite kg-1 is recommended for pot production of this plant. However, due to unfavorable effects on flowering stem diameter and leaf area, the application of zeolite on bulbous plants requires further research and it is difficult to solely judge bated on the present study.
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