Effects of Irrigation Water Salinity on Germination, Emergency, Biological Yield, Essence Quality and Quantity of Moldavian Balm (Dracocephalum moldavica L.).

In order to evaluate effects of water salinity of irrigation on different growth stages of moldavian balm 3 sets of experiments were conducted in agricultural and Nutural Resources Center of Esfahan in 2007. In germination stage, 14 water salinity treatments (0.3 – 39 dS/m) with 4 replications were applied on seeds in germinator, In emergency stage in greenhouse and in field 8 water salinity treatments were applied. According to the results, maximum and minimum germination percent and rate were obtained in control (96 %, 14.7 seed per day) and 39 ds/m (0 % and 0) respectively. About 59 % of seeds in control and 0% in 12 dS/m were emergenced and maximum emergencing rate was 24.8 seed per day in control. In the field, maximum and minimum biological yields were 1041 and 256 gr/m2 dry biomass in control and 21 dS/m respectively. By increasing salinity from 0.3 to 21 dS/m, hieght of plants reduced from 75.7 cm to 41.9 cm and amount of essence in m2 reduced from 3.3 cc to 0.9 cc. There was no significant difference between percent of essence in various treatments. Basic components of essence (neral, geraniol, geranial, neryl acetate and geranil acetate) varied from 64.4% to 81.3%.