The effect of drought and heavy metal stresses on growth characteristics, morphology and seed weight of quinoa plant

Quinoa, with its high nutritional value, is highly resistant to a wide range of non-biological stresses. Despite the limited resources and the increasing demand for food products in lands with low or limited fertility, it can be cultivated well and produces a good product.

This experiment was conducted with the aim of investigating the simultaneous effect of drought stress and heavy metals on the quinoa plant, in a factorial format in a completely randomized design with 3 replications. The first component involved two levels of soil (contaminated and uncontaminated), and the second factor, three levels of drought stress (100% of field capacity 60% of field capacity, and 30% of field capacity).

Interaction effect of soil type and drought stress was significant on all traits except the fresh weight of shoot and plant height. The lowest amount of fresh and dry weight of roots, dry weight of shoot and weight of thousand seeds was observed in contaminated soil with severe drought stress. Nevertheless, the weight of 1000 quinoa seeds under the influence of moderate drought stress was not significantly different from the condition without drought stress. Examining the simple effects showed that soil contamination with heavy metals caused a decrease of 13.7% in fresh weight of shoot and 30.5% decrease in dry weight of shoot compared to plants grown in uncontaminated soil.

In general, it can be stated that the increase in drought stress has significantly reduced root fresh weight and 1000 seed weight in quinoa, but the percentage and ratio of this reduction in soil contaminated with heavy metals was much higher than that of non-contaminated soil. According to the results of this research, the cultivation of quinoa can be investigated as a promising plant in soils with similar limitations.