An investigation on ecological properties and range seeding of Thymus trautvetteri Klokov as a medicinal species (Case study: Rangeland of Godali Salakh area in Bojnourd)

Thymus trautvetteri, belonging to Lamiaceae family, is one of the most important medicinal plant in Iran. It has many uses in food, health care, cosmetics and especially in pharmaceutical industries. In order, this plant ecological characteristic for introduce and dense cultivation on dryland artificial revegetation. This study was executed in rangeland and dryland artificial revegetation from 2018 to 2021 in Bojnourd. In this habitat, different parameters such as climate characters, physical and chemical analysis of the soil were determined. Phenological stages and some plant characteristics such as product, density, canopy cover, plant height and root system were studied. The results indicated that this plant could be adapted for regions with annual rainfall average of 295 mm, annual temperature average of 11.28 c and semiarid- cold climate. The most habitats of Thymus trautvetteri have dispersed in North Slope directions and altitude 1200- 1900 m of sea level in mountainous areas. The soil texture of habitat is mainly sandy loam with the pH=7.8, EC=1.0 ds/m, OC= 2.0% and 27.3% lime. In the site and dryland artificial revegetation, Average of canopy covers and production were 9.29, 61.6% and 227.7, 2465.4 kg in hectare respectively. The results of Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that among environmental factors, sand, silt, organic matter, EC, gravel and Nitrogen had significant correlations with the first set of factors and explained the 28.8% of variation.