Evaluation of quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Calendula officinalis L. in different treatments of seed priming and biofertilizer

The management of soil elements using biofertilizers and seed priming is one of the sustainable agricultural pillars that can be a good strategy in providing healthy food, environmental health and human health. Priming shortens the planting time until the seeds germinate and protects the living and non-living factors in the critical stage of seedling establishment. Also, this treatment causes uniformity of seedling emergence, which leads to uniform stability and improved crop yield. Also, one of the ways to achieve sustainable agricultural goals is to use microorganisms that play an important role in meeting the nutritional needs of plants. Biofertilizers contain microorganisms. When used on seeds, rootstocks, or in the soil, they stimulate the growth of the roots or the plant itself, and by increasing the availability of minerals, they increase plant growth an environmental point of view, they are acceptable. This experiment was performed as a factorial in the form of a randomized complete block design with three replications on the Field of the Agricultural Research and Natural Resources Center of West Azerbaijan in the 2013 crop year. Experimental treatments included five levels of priming (control, hydropreaming, smoopriming, soaking and hydropriming) and four levels of biofertilizer (control, Azobacter, Phosphate, Azobacter + Phosphate) on marigold seeds. Under pre-treatment conditions, the seeds were soaked in different solutions at room temperature for eight hours before sowing and immediately after sowing on Filter paperand re-dried for 24 hours. In order to inoculate seeds into biofertilizers (Azobacter and Phosphate), first mix the seeds thoroughly with gum arabic and bacterium Azobacter and Phosphate and stir to increase the contact surface of gum arabic and bacterium with marigold seeds. Seed inoculation with growth-promoting bacteria was performed in shady conditions. The results showed that the highest plant height (44.12 cm), flower weight (16.95 g/plant), flower yield (339.13 g/m2), petal yield (294.13 kg/ha), seed yield (1840.13 kg/ha) and essential oil yield (2.21 kg/ha) were related to the interaction of the effect of hormone priming interaction and combined application of Azobacter + Phosphate fertilizer. The highest biological yield (5768.30 kg/ha) was obtained under the influence of hormone preming and Azobacter. The maximum grain harvest index (35.43%) was observed in hormone priming treatment without the use of biofertilizer, which was not significantly different from the combined treatment of osmopriming and hormone priming under the application of fertile Phosphate fertilizer.The highest number of branches (30.15) was related to hormone treatment and in terms of biofertilizer, the highest number of branches (29.77) was observed in the combined treatment of Azobacter + Phosphate fertilizer Flower yield, seed yield, percentage of essential oil and marigold essential oil yield with combined application of biofertilizers (Azotobacter + Phosphate fertilizer) under the influence of hormone priming compared to other treatments, respectively 52, 40, 30 and 58% (at a significant level of probability 1 %) increased. In general, the findings of this study show that priming of marigold seeds was superior to control treatment (without priming) due to increased yield components. Also, the use of a combination of Azobacter + Phosphate fertilizer increased yield, grain yield components and marigold essential oil yield significantly compared to other fertilizer treatments. Therefore, according to the findings of this study, in order to increase and improve the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of marigold plant, the combined use of the Azotobacter with Phosphate fertilizer under the influence of hormone priming can be desirable in the direction of sustainable agriculture.