seed mucilage

To investigate the effects of sowing date and nitrogen fertilizer on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics and nitrogen efficiency in Lallemantiaiberica (M.Bieb.) Fisch. & C.A.Mey. and Lallemantiaroyleana (Benth.) Benth., an experiment was conducted as a factorial split plot in a randomized complete block design at the Faculty of Agriculture, Shahed University. The treatments included the sowing date as the main plot at two levels of autumn and spring sowing, and the nitrogen fertilizer at three levels of 0, 50 (8 kg ha-1), and 100%(16 kg ha-1) and two Lallemantia species as the subplots. The results of analysis of variance showed the significance of the effects of sowing date, nitrogen fertilizer, plant species, and the interaction of all three treatments on grain yield, 1000-grain weight, harvest index, leaf area index, leaf chlorophyll content, seed protein, nitrogen, and mucilage content, and nitrogen uptake, use, and utilization efficiencies. The autumn sowing in comparison with the spring one had the most positive and incremental effect on the studied traits except seed nitrogen. The results showed that the application of 16 kg ha-1 nitrogen fertilizer on both sowing dates increased the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of both Lallemantia species compared to the non-fertilizer application conditions. Increasing the use of nitrogen fertilizer compared to the non-fertilizer application conditions increased the nitrogen uptake and use efficiencies in the autumn and spring sowing dates in both Lallemantia species. Increasing the use of nitrogen fertilizer in the autumn sowing increased the nitrogen use efficiency in both Lallemantia species, but in the spring sowing, the nitrogen use efficiency was higher under the non-fertilizer application conditions compared to the different levels of nitrogen fertilizer application. L.iberica showed a more positive reaction to the nitrogen fertilizer application compared to L.royleana.

In order to investigate the effect of sowing date and nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer on the seed flavonoid content, qualitative and germination characteristics of lady’s mantle (Lallemantia royleana Benth.), a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design with three replications was conducted in 2013-2014 crop year. Experimental factors included sowing date at two levels (autumn and spring) and chemical fertilizer at three levels (without fertilizer, half application of required fertilizer (23 kg ha-1 pure N+ 50.6 kg ha-1 P2O5) and full application of required fertilizer (46 kg ha-1 pure N+ 101.2 kg ha-1 P2O5). Flavonoid measurement of the seeds was performed weekly from flowering to seed ripening. The results of the mean comparison showed that the highest seed germination percentage was obtained at autumn sowing (74.8%) with an increase of 11.6% compared to spring sowing and at the full application of required fertilizer (88.6%) with an increase of 73.4% compared to without fertilizer. The application of chemical fertilizer and autumn cultivation of lallemantia significantly increased the percentage of seed mucilage compared to control. Seven days after flowering, the highest flavonoid content was obtained at spring sowing (0.264 mg quercetin per g sample) with an increase of 63.97% compared to autumn sowing, and at no fertilizer treatment (0.282 mg quercetin per g sample) with an increase of 90.54% compared to the full application of required fertilizer (0.148 mg quercetin per g sample). Twenty-eight days after flowering, the highest flavonoid content was obtained at spring sowing (0.554 mg quercetin per g sample) and no fertilizer treatment (0.629 mg quercetin per g sample). In general, the results showed that the autumn sowing date and full application of required chemical fertilizer increased the seed quality in terms of mucilage percentage and germination, but the spring sowing date and no fertilizer treatment increased the flavonoid content of lallemantia seeds.