| Abstrakt: |
Saffron is a valuable plant that generally faces water stress in its life cycle. Therefore, in order to investigate the effect of corm priming of saffron on the physiological and corm characteristics of this product under drought stress conditions, a split plot experiment was carried out based on a randomized complete block design with three replications. The experimental treatments included two levels of irrigation based on 70 and 50% of field capacity as a main plot and six corm priming treatments, including no priming (control), potassium nitrate, auxin, gibberellin, silicon dioxide nanoparticles, and hydro-priming as subplot. The results showed that the increase of intensity of drought stress from 70 to 50% of field capacity caused an increase of 38.5%, 59.1%, and 57.3% in the amount of chlorophyll a, chlorophyll b, and carotenoids, respectively, and a decrease of 32.6% and 20% to the ratio of chlorophyll a.b -1 and the amount of protein respectively. Priming of the mother corm with two hormones auxin and gibberellin, significantly increased the amount of protein, and the highest weight of the daughter corm was observed at gibberellin hormone treatment at the rate of 3.72 grams per plant. The two treatment levels of gibberellin and auxin hormones, under conditions of medium drought stress, significantly resulted in the highest number of daughter corms and gibberellin hormone and also significantly increased the diameter of daughter corm at the rate of 28 mm. In general, corm priming of saffron with two hormones gibberellin and auxin is recommended to improve the physiological traits and tuber characteristics, especially under water stress conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
