Production of Some Medicinal Plants in Aeroponic System

Abstract

In other to study the effect of the production system (aeroponic and soil production system), an experiment was conducted based on a completely randomized design with five replication. In this study plants were obtained from seed culture (<em>Cichorium</em>, <em>Withania</em> and <em>Echinacea</em>) in pot for 1 month in greenhouse and then, uniform plants (20 cm height, approximately) were transferred to aeroponic system and soil. The plants were harvested after six months and their vegetative traits and root characteristic were measured. The results indicated that the effects of production system were significant in terms of plant height, root length, number of leaves, shoot and root fresh and dry weights and photosynthetic pigments. The result showed that aeroponic system in comparison with soil system has produced the highest of leaf number, root length, plant height, root and shoot dry weight, root and shoot fresh weight and photosynthetic pigments. It can be concluded that aeoponic systems could be used for production of <em>Cichorium, Echinacea </em>and <em>Withania</em> under greenhouse.