Effects of Irrigation Water Quality and Growing Media on Some Quantitative and Qualitative Characteristics of Three Marigold Cultivars

In recent years, global warming and the scarcity of water have led to the use of other sources of irrigation water, such as low-quality saline and recyceled waste waters. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of three irrigation water qualities (regular, waste, and saline well waters with EC of 0.3, 1.0 and 4.8 dS/m, respectively) and the growing media (soil and soil +10% v/v perlite) on characteristics of three marigold cultivars (Tagetes erecta L. ‘Climax’ and ‘Antigua’ and T. patula L. ‘Sophia’), in a pot experiment. All of the vegetative traits, except growth period and plant height had no significant differences in waste and saline water treatments. Irrigation with saline water significantly reduced all of the vegetative traits. Flowering priods in regular, waste, and saline water treatments were 76, 63, and 46 days, respectively. The highest and lowest values for the main flower duration, diameter and weight and the number of flowers per plant were observed in regular and saline water treatments, respectively. Flower yield per plant in waste and regular water treatments were statistically similar, but reduced in saline water by 35 and 39 %, respectively. Addition of perlite to soil, increased growth period and all of the vegetative and reproductive traits. Plant height and canopy shading area were the most different characters among the cultivars. Flowering period and all of the flower related traits of ‘Antigua’ were statistically more than ‘Climax’, but the values were close and except for number of flower per plant, were greatly reduced in ‘Sophia’. Compare to ‘Climax’ and ‘Antigua’ cultivars, ‘Sophia’ showed 61 and 68 % lower flower weight per plant.