WORLD JOURNAL OF ADVANCE
HEALTHCARE RESEARCH

Maher Zaki Faisal Al-Shammari, Fukhri Alajeeli*, Mohammed J. Alwan, Zainab Khalil Ali

ABSTRACT

Background: Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) belongs to the family Asteraceae (Li and Mundel, 1996). It is an erect annual herbaceous plant with a growth period ranging from 100 to 200 days depending on the cultivar. It is cultivated in two seasons: autumn and spring. Safflower oil is considered suitable for human consumption, and the oil content in seeds ranges between 25–40%. It contains high levels of unsaturated fatty acids, particularly linoleic and oleic acids Linoleic acid may constitute up to 75% of the oil content. Methodology A field experiment was conducted in one of the farms of Al-Musayyib District affiliated with the Directorate of Agriculture during the 2022–2023 growing season to evaluate the efficiency of bacterial biofertilizer and NPK nanofertilizer in improving certain biochemical traits and bioactive compounds of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.). The experiment was carried out using a Randomized Complete Block Design (R.C.B.D.) as a factorial experiment (2 × 3 × 4): including two safflower cultivars, three concentrations of biofertilizer (0, 10?, and 10? CFU ml?¹):and four concentrations of nanofertilizer (0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 ml L?¹).The results indicated a significant increase in the average values of the bioactive compounds (Apigenin, Acacetin, Luteolin, and Quercetin). The studied safflower cultivars differed significantly in their morphological and chemical characteristics. The local cultivar recorded the highest flavonoid contents of Luteolin and Quercetin, with carbohydrate percentages reaching 6.792% and 6.853%, respectively. The Indian cultivar showed a significant increase in carbohydrate concentration in the vegetative parts by 2.134%, protein content in seeds by 1.247%, Acacetin concentration by 8.631%, and Apigenin concentration by 25.361%.The concentration of 1.5 ml L?¹ nanofertilizer produced a significant increase in seed protein percentage and in the average concentrations of the bioactive compounds Apigenin, Acacetin, Luteolin, and Quercetin, with increases of 31.930%, 23.820%, 26.577%, and 18.951%, respectively. The binary interaction between experimental factors achieved the highest significant increase at the interaction between 1.0 ml L?¹ nanofertilizer and 10? CFU ml?¹ biofertilizer.The triple interaction among experimental treatments showed that applying 1.0 ml L?¹ nanofertilizer combined with 10? CFU ml?¹ bacterial biofertilizer for both cultivars produced the highest significant increase in most of the studied traits.

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