The Effect of Iodine On Increasing Drought Tolerance Of (Carthamus Tinctorius L.) In Seed Germination And Early Growth Stage

Drought stress is a limiting factor for plant production. In order to minimize the adverse effects of stress, different modifying compounds have been used. In this study, the role of iodine in reducing the effect of drought stress on morphological characteristics of Carthamus tinctorius L. was investigated in laboratory conditions. The experiment was performed as a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with 3 replications. Four levels of drought stress (0, -0/4, -0/8, -1/2, -1/6 MPa ( and three levels of iodine (0, 40, 80 μΜ) were considered as first and second factors, respectively. Results showed that all studied traits significantly (p<0.01) affected by drought stress. With increasing drought stress, germination percentage, germination rate, seed vigor, shoot, and root length, as well as seedling weight, were significantly decreased but the use of iodine leads to improve the adverse effect of drought stress. Overall results indicate that iodine could be considered a possibly beneficial element to diminish the harmful effects of drought stress.