Esfandiar Fateh,Hossein Noroozi, Mansoor Farbod and Farzad Gerami
In order to evaluation the effect of magnetic water and ultrasonic waves on fennel seed germination and seedling growth, a laboratory experiment was carried out at the phytoron of Agriculture Faculty of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran, during 2011. This experiment was arranged factorial (2×5) in a completely randomized design with four replications. Seeds exposed to magnetic and distilled water under different times of exposure including 0 (UST-NO), 2 (UST-2min), 4 (UST-4min), 6 (UST-6min) and 8 (UST-8min) minutes. Our result showed that, types of water (distilled and magnetic water; TW) had significant effect on all traits except of germination percentage and radicle to plumule ratio. Also, ultrasonic waves exposure times (UST) had high significant effect on all germination and seedling growth characteristic (p ≤ 0.01). In other hand, only mean germination rate significantly influenced by interaction of treatments (TW × UST). All studied traits decreased by using of magnetic water as compared with tap water except of radicle weight. Also, all measured traits significantly decreased by increasing of UST. In all investigated traits, maximum and minimum value observed in UST-NO and UST-8min, respectively. However, in these traits no significant differences observed between UST-6min and UST-8min except for radicle to plumule ratio, as well as plumule and radicle weights. In general among various treatments, distilled water and UST-NO in compared with other treatments had most progressive effect on fennel germination characteristics and seedling growth.
