Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
Abstract
Environmental stress especially water deficiency (drought) is of the most important factors in arid and semi arid regions of Iran that hugely affects plant growth especially in germination and emergence stages. To find the effects of water stress on germination properties and early growth characteristics of three Bromus species (B. tomentellus, B. inermis, B. persicu), a Factorial experiment based on Completely Randomized Design with four replications was conducted. Water stress treatments included -3, -6 and -9 bars, also distilled water was considered as control. Germination percentage, root length, shoot length, seedling length, root to shoot ratio, seedling dry weight, seedling fresh weight, dry to fresh weight ratio, germination rate and seed vigor were examined as germination and early growth properties of understudied species. The results showed that increase of drought stress, especially when changing from -3 to -6 bars, significantly reduced all attributes. Seedling length and seed vigor showed more decrease. Among the species, B. tomentellus showed higher germination compared to the other species. It was cleared that -6 and -9 bars potentials could be considered as favorable water stress levels to evaluate the ability of the mentioned species for germinating under drought conditions.
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