Effects of proline foliar application on alleviation of water deficit in German chamomile

Water deficit stress is one of the most important abiotic stresses that seriously leads to plant production decrement. Several strategies have been proposed to alleviate of cellular damage caused by water deficit stress and also to improve plant tolerance against water deficit .The study was conducted as factorial experiment based on completely randomized design with three replications in Guilan University. Treatments included proline spraying in two concentrations of 50 and 100 mg/L, and irrigation after 0, 25, 50 and 75% depletion of FC level in stem elongation stage. Water deficit resulted in increase of proline content and catalase but decrease of morphological traits. Proline application had significant impact on all traits under water stress conditions. The foliar application of 100 mg/L proline resulted to improvement of growth and alleviate of water stress damages. On the whole, application of 100 mg/L proline would be recommendable to reach the maximum yield of German chamomile in various water deficit circumstances.