Effect of biofertilizers on morphological, physiological characteristic and essential oil content in basil (Ocimum basilicum L.)

Fertilizer management is utmost important factor in success of pharmaceutical crops cultivation. Application of biological fertilizers is important in production of these plants with the aim of elimination or significant reduction of chemical inputs and also increase of soil fertility and improvement of plant growth and quality. Therefore, an experiment was conducted on basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) in greenhouse of Agriculture Faculty of Agriculture of Kurdistan University. A complete randomized design with five treatments and four replications were used. Treatments were nitroxin, biological phosphorus, nitroxin+biological phosphorus, chemical origin of nitrogen+phosphorus and control (no fertilizer). The results indicated significant effect of treatments on the dry weight of total shoots, plant height, number of leaves, leaf dry weight, photosynthesis, transpiration, essential oil content and yield, root dry weight, number of flowering branches and chlorophyll content. But, this effect was not significant on root length, stem dry weigh and sub-stomata CO2. The plant performanced better with application of chemical fertilizer and a mixture of nitroxin and biological phosphorus in terms of the mentioned criteria. Therefore, it could be concluded that biological fertilizers may be considered as a suitable replacement for a lot of chemical fertilizers consumption in sustainable agricultural systems.