Investigation of the effects of plant density and planting date on quantitative and qualitative yield of forage mustard under saline conditions

In order to investigate the effects of soil salinity, plant density and planting date on quantitative and qualitative yield of forage mustard forage, an experiment was conducted in 2016 at Gorgan Nemoone Farm Research Station as a split split plot in a randomized complete block with three replications. Main factor of soil salinity (2 and 10 dS/m), sub-factor of planting date (6 November, 21 November, 6 December, 21 December and 5 January) and sub sub-factor of plant density at three levels (208000, 277000 and 416000 plants Per hectare) was considered. The results showed the interactions of environment × planting date on all studied traits including fresh weight, dry weight, percentage of leaf protein, percentage of stem protein, percentage of pod protein, percentage of total protein, protein yield, percentage of leaf fibers, percentage of stem fibers, percentage of Pod fibers, percentage of total fibers, fiber yield and leaf proline concentration were significant. The interaction effect of environment × planting density was also significant on all the mentioned traits except leaf protein percentage and leaf proline concentration. Also, the interaction effect of planting date and planting density was not significant only on stem protein percentage and leaf proline concentration. In conclusion, it can be said that the cultivation of forage mustard on November 6 and 208000 plants per hectare will produce the highest fresh and dry weight of forage and protein yield, as well as the lowest amount of fiber.