Abstract
Employing of advanced statistical methods to quantify agricultural information has helped to carry out targeted planning to alleviate the problems of farmers, researchers and policy section. One of these exploratory methods, is multivariate statistical analysis that examines and models the relationship between variables. Considering the importance of Echium amoenum and its use growing trend in traditional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, also the lack of information on the correlations between its yield and morpho physiological traits, the objective of this study was to determine the causality path in which the Echium amoenum characteristics affects the yield of Echium amoenum as regards of application of organic and chemical fertilizers under different plant densities. The employed method revealed that organic fertilizers increased flower yield compared with the control. The flower yield as a result of application of compost, vermicompost and cattle manure were increased by 25, 28, and 27% compared with the control, respectively. The results of multiple regression showed that variables of plant height, shoot dry weight, flower number per plant were the main factors affected the flower yield. The relative contribution of shoot dry weight was 16 and 25% more than plant height and flower number per plant, respectively. Causality analysis identified that shoot dry weight per plant had indirect effect on flower yield in different paths, as mainly was imposed through plant height considering the path coefficients. This study suggests that optimum production of Echium amoenum with application of ecological inputs along with effective agronomical managements of the causal paths of flower yield forming, including increase in shoot yield and plant height could be achieved through an ecological cropping system with reduced costs and no health concerning due to agrochemicals residual.
Highlights
The use of eco-friendly inputs as approaches to achieve sustainable agriculture has been considered[1,2]
The results showed that cultivation of borage with density of 5 plants m −2 and application of compost resulted to the highest flower yield
According to the results of multiple regression, shoot yield per plant, plant height and flower number per plant were identified as the main factors affecting dry flower yield, the relative proportion of plant height compared with shoot weight per plant and flower number was higher by 16 and 25%, respectively
Summary
The use of eco-friendly inputs as approaches to achieve sustainable agriculture has been considered[1,2]. It was reported that the highest root growth rate and root relative growth rate of sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) were resulted from the combined application of vermicompost and mycorrhiza t reatment[8] Introducing these organic fertilizers to soil improves nutritional, physical, chemical and biological aspects of soil ecosystem are improved[9,10,11]. Considering the importance of Echium amoenum and its use growing trend in traditional medicine and the pharmaceutical industry, the lack of information on the correlations between its yield and morpho physiological traits, this study was conducted aimed to determine the causality path in which the borage characteristics affects the yield of Echium amoenum as regards of application of organic and chemical fertilizers under different plant densities
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