Effects of biological, chemical and nano-fertilizers on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of Lallemantia iberica (M.B.) Fischer & Meyer

In order to investigate the effects of biological, chemical and nano-fertilizers on qualitative and quantitative factors of Lallemantia iberica (M.B.) Fischer & Meyer, an experiment was conducted under greenhouse conditions in 2016, at the research greenhouse of Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin, Iran. The experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with 9 treatments and 5 replications. Treatments included control (no fertilizer), biophosphat, nitroxin, nano fertilizer, chemical fertilizer, biophosphat×nitroxin, nitroxin×nano fertilizer, biophosphate×nano fertilizer, and biophosphat×nitroxin×nano fertilizer. Analysis of variance revealed that treatments significantly affected the plant height, fresh and dry weight, essential oil content, and essential oil constituents of dragon’s head. The maximum plant height (35gr) was obtained by applying chemical fertilizer, the highest fresh and dry weight (36.05 gr and 5.09 gr respectively) were found in the treatment with nitroxin×nano fertilizer, and the highest essential oil percentage with an average of 0.57% belonged to the biophosphate×nano fertilizer treatment. Twenty-four compounds were identified in the essential oils of L. iberica, of which the main constituents were limonene, linalool, verbenone, ß-caryophyllene, germacrene-D and β-cubeben. The highest limonene (7%) occurred with the nitroxin×biophosphate; the maximum amount of linalool (17.9%) was obtained by nitroxin×nano fertilizer; maximum percentage of verbenone (8.8%) was found in the treatment with biophosphate×nitroxin×nano fertilizer; the highest percentage of β-caryophyllene (12%) was observed with biophosphate×nano fertilizer; the highest amount of germacrene-D and β-cubeben (15% and 11.5%, respectively) in the essential oil were obtained by application of nano fertilizer. In addition, our results indicated that the combination of nano, nitroxin and biophosphate fertilizers could improve the growth and quality of dragon’s head plants.