فصلنامه گیاه و زیست فناوری ایران
سال پانزدهم شماره 3 (پاییز 1399)

Indiscriminate population growth, especially in urban areas and the emergence of metropolises, population concentration and involuntary human intervention in nature, the wave of consumerism along with the advancement of technology has led to the production of diverse solid waste with a wide range in the world. Many of the wastes produced, especially from industrial activity, have entered the air and soil due to population growth, urban development, and ultimately pollution. Nowadays, the development of new methods of managing resource utilization and the use of low-input farming systems in order to achieve sustainable agricultural goals and environmental protection has become particularly important. Sewage sludge is rich in organic matter and essential elements needed by plants such as nitrogen and phosphorus. The use of sewage sludge as fertilizer in agricultural fields, in addition to having economic advantages, is also a good option to solve its environmental problems. The main limitation of wastewater sludge consumption is the presence of high concentrations of heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. The use of sewage sludge in agricultural fields should be done by considering all its beneficial and harmful aspects, and maintaining the health of consumers of agricultural products should be a priority in all programs. This article tries to examine the useful and harmful aspects of the use of sewage sludge in agriculture.

Plants with a variety of environmental stresses encountered in the course of life. These stresses are likely to limit growth and survival of plants. Drought stress is one of the most important environmental stresses limiting the economic exploitation of land for the production of plants. In order to evaluate of effect drought stress and ascorbic acid on yield and growth parameters of Cumin (cuminum cyminum L.) a greenhouse experiment was conducted as factorial arrangement based on Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications in the greenhouse of Islamic Azad University of Jiroft in 2014. The first factor consisted of four concentration of ascorbic acid (0, 0.01,0.1 and 0.5 mM) and the second factor consisted of three levels of drought stress (irrigation at field capacity, drought stress medium with 2/3 field capacity and severe drought 1/3 field capacity).Results showed that drought stress decreased root length, stem length, protein and chlorophyll content and a significant increase in soluble sugars and proline. The highest effect of drought stress on the traits was obtained in severe stress. Ascorbic acid with antioxidant properties can reduce the damage caused by stress on plants and the concentrations of 0.1 and 0.5 mM ascorbic acid had the greatest effect on drought stress.

One of the most important orchids in the world is Phalaenopsis amabilis which has allocated around 70% of orchid global market. This plant was used as pot plant and cut flower. Protocorm-like bodies (PLBs) explant, MS culture medium, and plant growth regulators; indole-3- butyric acid (IBA) in concentrations of 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and 1 mg/l and kinetin (Kin) in concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, 2 and 3 mg/l were used for this orchid. Results showed that the highest leaf length (4.10 cm) in treatment of 1 mg/l IBA along with 2 mg/l Kin, maximum leaf number (5.25) in treatment of 0.2 mg/l IBA along with 1.5 mg/l Kin, and the highest root length (6.85 cm) in treatment of 0.2 mg/l IBA along with 1 mg/l Kin were obtained. PLBs as explant and colchicine in 4 levels (0, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15%) for 72 h as antimitotic agent were used to induce polyploidy. Result of flow cytometery analysis and morphological and anatomical traits showed that the use of 0.15% colchicine caused to induce tetraploid plants.

Due to the calcareous and high pH of the soil in most pistachio growing areas of Iran, the absorption of some elements such as iron and zinc from the soil by pistachio trees is difficult. Under these conditions, foliar application of nutrients is a better way to supply nutrients to deficient plants than to soil application. For this purpose, the efficiency of foliar application of different sources of iron along with zinc sulfate on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of pistachio ‘Ahmad Aghaei’ was investigated in a completely randomized design with three replications. The experiment was carried out on 8-years old pistachio trees (cv. Ahmad Aghaei), which had been grafted on Fandoghi rootstock, at a commercial orchard in Pakdasht, Iran. Iron citrate (0.2 and 0.4%), iron sulfate (0.2 and 0.4%) or iron chelate (0.1 and 0.2%) in combination with zinc sulfate (0.1 and 0.2%) was carried out in early June and early July (at the filling stage). Pistachio fruits were picked up during the commercial harvest period, when the fruit reached a physiological maturity stage signalled by a reddish hull. The results of analysis of variance revealed that the effect of treatments on all studied traits was significant. The highest splitting rate (%) was obtained by iron citrate 0.4% + zinc sulfate 0.2%. The results of the Pearson correlation coefficients among the traits showed that there is a negative correlation between splitting rate (%) with small nut (%) and blankness (%) as well as a positive correlation with dry weight of 100 nuts, which shows that weight of nuts is the main cause of splitting rate. Foliar application of different sources of iron in combination with zinc sulfate led to a significant reduction in small nut (%) and blankness (%) so that the highest these two traits were related to control 1 (distilled water) and control 2 (common fertilization in the region). The fresh weight of 100 nuts from 140 g in control 1 reached to highest level (162.3 g) in iron citrate 0.4% + zincn sulfate 0.2%. The highest dry weight of 100 nuts was also related to this treatment. Foliar application of different sources of iron with zinc did not significantly increase total chlorophyll compared to controls. According to this study, in pistachio orchard with sandy loam soil in Pakdasht region, spraying of trees with different sources of iron (especially iron citrate) in combination with zinc sulfate could improve the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of pistachio.

Rice is one the most important crops in Iran and worldwide. Evaluating genotype × environment interaction effects and identifying stable and high performance varieties under different environmental conditions is very important in plant breeding. In this regard, an experiment was conducted with 30 native and modified rice genotypes in a randomized complete block design at research farm of Sari University of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources with four replication in 2016-2017. Record of some important crop and morphological traits, such as plant height, length of panicles, number of effective tillers, total number of grains, number of unfilled grains, number of filled grains, 1000- grain weight, biological yield, economic yield, harvest index, chlorophyll index and growth period it took place. The results of analysis of variance showed a significant difference between genotypes at the probability level of 0/1 percent for all studied traits.Also, the significance of the comparison of mean treatments for all morphological traits studied, Indicates a sufficient diversity for all studied specimens in the genotypes studied in Sari area.The cluster analysis by UPGMA method and with the Euclidean distance criterion for studied traits, genotypes studied were divided into three groups. The results of principal components analysis showed that the first five components justify the total data change of 82/199%.

In recent years, along with the need to use more green space and ornamental plants, cut flowers have also become extremely important. In our country, with the variety of suitable climate, bright sun and genetic resources, many flowers were obtained due to the increasing importance of flowers and ornamental plants. Job creation and currency exchange can have a good position in the big trade market. Carnation is one of the most important cut flowers in the world, which is widely used for decoration and flower arrangement. So that this flower is considered as the bestselling cut flower in the world. In this study, in order to investigate the effect of organic fertilizers on cloves and compare them with experimental chemical fertilizers using 4 types of fertilizers, namely humic acid, folic acid, urea and NPK, respectively, by foliar application at 5 levels (zero, 3 ml of humic acid). 0.4 g of folic acid, 0.5 g of urea, 1.25 g of complete fertilizer). The experiment was conducted in a completely randomized block design in the greenhouse. The measured traits were total chlorophyll content and soluble sugar in leaves. The results of this study indicated that the use of leaf humic acid and folic acid increases the amount of chlorophyll and sugar dissolved in Carnation and is a good alternative to chemical fertilizers.