Water and Soil

Abstract Most of medicinal plants are able to grow in low P supply as well. In order to study the ability of some medicinal plant species, a greenhouse experiment was conducted with Salvia virgata, Achillea millefolium and Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam in a low P soil. The experiment was undertaken with three levels of P (0, 15, 150 mg kg-1), two harvests and three replications as a randomized complete block design. In the second harvest and low P treatment, all species showed a high relative shoot dry matter (above 80%) which indicated a high P use efficiency of them. The range of shoot P concentration in low P treatment at the first harvest was between 0.23% and 0.29%. In this case, no significant difference was observed among different P treatments. In addition, the shoot P content of plants was almost high. As a result, all three plant species were P uptake efficient plants. The P influx in Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam was more than two other plant species. The results of the root- shoot ratio of plants at low P supplied was indicated that high P uptake efficiency of Salvia virgata was mostly due to its extensive root system, whilst, for Ziziphora clinopodioides Lam it was mostly due to its high P influx.