Effect of Deficit Irrigation and Fertilization on Yield and Yield Components of Basil in Two Soil Textures

Basil (Ocimumbasilicum L.) is one of the important plants belonging to the genus family Lamiaceae (Labiatae), which is used as herbs, spices, and as well as fresh vegetables. The present study was conducted to investigate the interaction of deficit irrigation, soil texture, and fertilization on yield components and vegetative growth of basil variety Keshkeniluvelou, using a factorial experiment based on randomized complete block design (RCBD) with 18 treatments and 3 replications. Deficit irrigation treatments consisted of three levels of irrigation including I1=100%, I2=75%, and I3=50% of ETc, and soil texture included sandy loam and loamy soil. Also, 3 fertilizer treatments with 100 percent of the recommended rate (including macro- and micronutrients) (F1), 70 percent (F2), and no fertilizer (F3) were applied to each pot. The ANOVA results showed that effect of irrigation was significant, soil texture and fertilizer were not significant, and interaction of soil texture and fertilizer were significant on plant height, leaf area, leaf dry weight, stem dry weight, and fresh weight of basil, respectively. The tallest plant height (31.42cm), leaf area (109.21cm2), leaf dry weight (0.97 gr), stem dry weight (2.24 gr), and fresh weight of leaf (5.12gr) was obtained in S1I1F3 treatment and the lowest in the S1I3F3 treatment. Also, the highest seed weight per plant (2.41gr), number of seeds per plant (1822.3), thousand seed weight (1.447gr), and seed yield (42.13 gr/m2) were obtained in the treatment having loamy soil texture, full irrigation, and 100% of the recommended fertilizer rate (S2I1F1), which showed the effect of fertilizer on improving the yield of basil.