Journal of Plant Process and Function

Drought is one of the most frequent abiotic stresses. Use of chemical fertilizers resulted in pollution of soil, water and air. For this reason today again considered organic fertilizers. Vermicompost is an organic fertilizer which has a potential influence on plant growth as well as stress tolerance. Deficiency irrigation water, severely reduce the yield of crops, especially olives. Thus, a greenhouse experiment was coducted in 2015 to study the effect of vermicompost on growth and drought tolerance of olive cuttings cultivar Zard. The experiment was set up as factorial experiment in completely randomized design with two factors, including vermicompost application at four levels (0%, 12.5%, 25% or 50% ) and drought stress at two levels (full irrigation or non-irrigation) and 4 replications. The results showed that drought stress decreased and addition of vermicompost increased vegetative growth parameters significantly compared to plants cultivated in unamended soil. Water stress treatment decreased the total chlorophyll and increased ion leakage, ascorbat peroxidase and catalase activity and proline content and application of vermicompost significantly decreased ion leakage. Although, all vermicompost levels of 12.5, 25 or 50%  continued to be positive effects, 25% vermicompost treatment was numerically superior to others, increased chlorophyll and proline contents and antioxidant enzyme activity and decreased ion leakage from leaves.