This research was conducted with the purpose of appraising the effect of Selenium (Se) and/or amino acid fertilizers (AA) on improving growth, physiology, and biofortification of parsley grown under high EC condition. Plants were foliarly supplemented with four levels of Se (0, 25, 50, 100 mgl-1) and/or two concentrations of AA (0 and 0.2%) three times with a week interval. The significantly increases in the leaf fresh and dry masses as well as improvements in leaf area and stem heights were recorded in Se and/or AA-supplemented plants, as opposed to Se 100. However, the growth inhibiting effects of Se 100 were relieved by AA. In contrast to Se 100, Se 25 AA and Se 50 AA were the most effective treatments to improve the chlorophyll contents. The significant inductions in the activities of antioxidant enzymes, peroxidase, and polyphenol oxidase were observed in Se and/or AA treated plants. The usage of Se and/or AA, especially the combined ones, led to the significant stimulations in the activities of phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL). The significantly higher contents of phenolics, a suitable quality indicator with great significance for cardiovascular diseases in humans, were observed in Se and/or AA supplemented plants. The foliar supplementation of amino acids accelerated and/or declined the physiological alterations triggered by Se dependent on the applied concentrations. It could be concluded that the simultaneous supplementation of Se and AA at appropriate levels represents an environmentally friendly way of promoting growth, alleviating stress, and fortifying in parsley.

Extended AbstractIntroduction: Parsley is a plant from the parsley family (Apiaceae), which is in the vegetable group, and its origin is considered to be the eastern part of the Mediterranean or West Asia. Despite the significant production and consumption of this plant in the country, there are few data about the native populations of this plant. Several studies have also been conducted with the aim of cultivating parsley (Danaiee, 2015; Saadati et al., 2019) and increasing the seed germination percentage of indigenous populations (Mirjalili and Poorazizi, 2024). This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the genetic diversity between parsley populations using morphological characteristics.Materials and Methods: 24 seeds of native parsley plants from different parts of the country including plants from Jiroft, Garmsar, Minab, Arak, Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan, Yazd, Dezful, Hamadan and Tehran were collected by the authors and two imported plants were purchased and cultivated. The plan was implemented as an augmentation. 21 vegetative and reproductive traits were selected and measured according to UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) guidelines. Isfahan population (Rehnan) was considered as control. Results and discussion: Analysis of variance of the data showed that the stands had a significant difference at the level of 1% in terms of the investigated traits. Traits related to plant height, plant spread, petiole length, leaflet length, leaflet width, leaf to petiole length ratio, number of side branches, number of umbels per plant, number of umbelets per umbel and number of days to germination have significant difference at level 1% and the number of leaves and length of the leaf were significant at the level of 5% and the rest of the traits were not significant. The highest plants (27 cm) observed in Bahar Hamadan population. Native population of Jiroft-Dehghan 3 had the widest plants (38.4 cm) and Isfahan Jarqouye population showed the highest number of leaf (11.2 leaves per plant) and the longest petiole (19.76 cm) among other populations. Examining the degree of correlation of traits among the studied parsley populations showed that the traits have little correlation with each other. Drawing the dendrogram of the morphological similarities of the masses based on quantitative traits indicated that these similarities or distances are not related to the geographical location of the seed collection place of the populations. In general, it was concluded that the populations of Jarqouye of Isfahan and Bahar Hamedan are promising native populations and can be used for breeding purposes.Conclusion: The native populations of Jafari have considerable genetic diversity in terms of quantitative traits. Evaluation of morphological traits in plant taxa is a preliminary step in character recognition. The present study showed that there is a diversity of morphological traits in these populations and this diversity is of particular importance in breeding programs, but the confirmation of this diversity requires more detailed studies including molecular and cytological studies.

Nickel as a heavy metal is considered a fatal and toxic element for humans, animals and plants. However, some plants are known as hyper accumulator for nickel and sometimes seem to be useful for plant growth. Thus, investigation on the effect of nickel on plants' growth is an issue of importance. In this paper, we have studied the effect of different nickel concentrations on parsley growth and morph-physiological characteristics and its effect on absorption of some macro elements in this plant. Seeds of parsley were germinated in germinator and seedlings were transferred to hydroponics culture. The seedlings were grown in Hogland solution with different nickel concentrations (in form of nickel nitrate) of: 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2 and 4ppm. A completely randomized design with 8 treatments and 7 replications per treatment was used. Twelve weeks after treatments, morph-physiological characteristics including SPAD number, plant biomass, length of shoot and root, leaf area, leaf number and stomatal resistance were measured. The amount of absorbed nickel in plant foliages and roots of different treatments were also measured. The results revealed that the application of different nickel concentrations were decreased SPAD number, plant biomass, leaf area and leaf number, but the stomatal resistance were increased. Increase of nickel concentration resulted increasing Ni concentrations of plant foliages and roots. Nickel with 0.75ppm concentration or higher imposed a toxic effect on parsley as general wilting and significant reduction in most morph-physiological characteristics.