Effect of permanent and periodic flooding treatments on growth, morphological and physiological characteristics of one-year old potted seedlings of Quercus castaneifolia in Noor lowland

In order to examine the growth, morphological and physiological changes of one-year old potted seedlings of Quercus castaneifolia, a research was performed based on completely randomized design with 3 treatments and 4 replicates (with 48 seedlings) in regimes of permanent flooding and periodic flooding (two weeks in between until 120 days) and in the Natural Resources of Tarbiat Modares University of Noor on 120 days. Analysis of LSD’s test showed that the permanent flooding decreased 19% in survival as compared with control seedlings. This is while, that all seedlings in periodic flooding were survived with respect to controls. This reason may be contributed to producing of adventitious and soil drainage that caused increasing gas exchange of rhizosphere. Also flooding decreased growth characteristics, biomass accumulation, and physiological activity such as photosynthetic, stomatal conductance, transpiration and leaf water potential. Of course, except root length and the root/shoot ratio, other parameters in permanent flooding were smaller than those of in periodic flooding. In contrast, diameter growth response in periodic flooding was higher than that in permanent flooding and it was a little greater than that in control. The reason of this phenomenon may be attributed to the development of woody xylem cells. Generally, on the base of findings in this research, it can be stated that Q. castaneifolia seedling is relatively tolerant to flooding (particularly to periodic flooding). It is suggested that for restoration of degraded forests exposed on flooding stresses and or where the natural regeneration of this species is being restricted by flooding, such a research with further seedlings, in different growth phases and during longer periods can be used with this species and also other species with similar ecological nature.