Effect of irrigation with magnetic water on vegetative growth, chemical contents and essential oil in rosemary grown in different levels of salinity [electronic resource].

Includes references.

Magnetic water has widely used in agriculture irrigation as a promising technology to improve water use efficiency and crop productivity.
Pot experiment was conducted at the Experimental Farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Menoufia University at Shibin El-Kom, Egypt during
the two successive seasons of 2015 and 2016. The study was conducting aiming to study the effect of magnetic irrigation water, salinity
stress and their interaction on the growth parameters, some chemical constituents and essential oil (percentage and components) of
Rosmarinus officinalis L. plants grown in different levels of salinity. The experiments layout was a factorial in a split randomized design.
Main plots were irrigation water (normal or magnetic) and the sub plots were different levels of salinity (0.0, 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3%).
All growth parameters (i.e. plant height, number of branches, fresh and dry weights of herb/ plant), N, P and K percentage, photosynthetic
pigments content and essential oil percentage were decreased significantly with increasing salinity level. On the other hand, magnetic water
can overcome (to some extent) the hazards effects caused by salinity. At the high level of salinity (0.3%), the increases in essential oil
percentage in herb of rosemary plants irrigated with magnetic water were 139.8% and 147.4% in first and second season respectively
(in relation to owing control). Also, the major component of essential oil (Limonene) reached the highest value (20.47%) in the plants
irrigated with magnetic water and exposed to salinity level 0.2%.

Summary in Arabic.