Author(s)

Muhammad Ahsan Khatana, Muhammad Muzammil Jahangir^*, Choudhary Muhammad Ayyub, Rashad Waseem Khan Qadri^*, Muhammad Azam, Khurram Ziaf, Muhammad Awais Ghani, Waseem Iqbal

Institute of Horticultural Sciences, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Drought stress is one of the foremost abiotic stresses which causes damage to verbena plant production by affecting its growth and development. There is less information available regarding utilization of perennial verbena under drought conditions. To check the ability of perennial verbena plant under water deficit conditions a pot research trial was planned. Perennial verbena’s seeds were sown in plastic trays and applied water daily. When seedlings attained two to three leaves stage then transplanted them into pots and exposed to different intervals of drought. Five drought intervals were applied such as after one day (T0), 4 days (T1), 6 days (T2), 8 days (T3) and 10 days (T4) irrigation intervals. Pots were arranged by adopting completely randomized design with four replications. Many morphologicali.e. plant height (cm), root length (cm), number of leaves and flowers/plant, fresh weight of shoot and root (g), dry weight of shoot and root (g) and chemical attributes i.e. chlorophyll “a”, “b” and total contents of chlorophyll were examined during this study. The findings exhibited that perennial verbena plant performed best under control conditions while when we increased drought interval gradually from 4 days’ interval till 10 days’ interval it affected all growth and chemical attributes badly and caused severe damage at 10 days’ interval.

Drought Intervals, Abiotic Stresses, Verbena Plant, Chlorophyll Contents, Pot Research Trial

Khatana, M. , Jahangir, M. , Ayyub, C. , Qadri, R. , Azam, M. , Ziaf, K. , Ghani, M. and Iqbal, W. (2018) Response of Morphological and Chemical Attributes of Perennial Verbena against Drought Stress. Open Access Library Journal, 5, 1-8. doi: 10.4236/oalib.1104387.