Morphological, Agronomical and Phytochemical Changes in Borage (Borago officinalis L.) under Biological and Chemical Fertilizers Application

Borage is a valuable medicinal plant and its production to meet the needs of the pharmaceutical industry has a high value. Thus, the study of bio-fertilizers effect on its qualitative and quantitative yield seems to be necessary. To determine the effects of nitrogen and phosphorus biofertilizers on morphological, agronomical and phytochemical characters of borage and feasibility of replacing chemical fertilizers with biological fertilizers. This experiment was done in the Research farm of ACECR, Institute of Medicinal Plants along 2009 –2010 on the base of factorial experiment in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. The treatments combination was three levels of biofertilizers (Control or no applying fertilizer, Nitroxin and Bio- Phosphor and three levels of chemical fertilizers (0, 50 and 100 percent of the nutritional needs of the farm). The biological and chemical fertilizers as well as their interactions had significant effects on flower number, grain yield and content of total phenol, oil and γ-linolenic acid. The chemical and biological fertilizers significantly increased the morphological and agronomical characters. Although the oil and γ-linolenic acid content significantly decreased with application of chemical fertilizer, the application of bio-fertilizers significantly increased the γ-linolenic acid content. Although the qualitative yield decreased with consumption of chemical fertilizers, the borage performance in respect of all studied traits increased with application of bio-fertilizers. Therefore, the biofertilizers can be an alternative to replacing chemical fertilizers for increasing borage production which is in order to minimize of environmental pollution and sustainable agriculture.