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Silicon nanoparticles have distinctive physicochemical characteristics and are able to enter into plants and impact the metabolism of plants as well as improve plant growth and yield under unfavourable environmental conditions. Besides, low soil organic matter content, imbalanced nutrient and inadequate water supply may adversely affect crop productivity in semiarid areas. To understand the effects of foliar spray of silicon dioxide nanoparticles (nSiO2) with application of farmyard manure (FYM) or inorganic fertilizer on morpho-physiological traits and yield of safflower, a field experiment was carried out in a highland semiarid region of Maragheh, northwest Iran. The experiment consisted of two levels of nSiO2(0 and 20 mM) and four fertilizer regimes (control, 15 t ha−1FYM, 30 t ha−1FYM, 90 kg ha−1N-P-K chemical fertilizer). Safflower plants were treated with nSiO2suspension at leaf development, branching and capitulum emergence stages. Although the nSiO2significantly improved some growth parameters such as canopy spread, stem diameter, plant height, ground cover and the number of achenes in capitulum, it did not affect achene yield and harvest index. However, fertilizer treatments considerably affected most of morpho-physiological traits, achene yield and yield components. The result showed that the best growth and the highest achene yield were achieved by application of 30 t ha−1FYM before sowing. Application of high FYM increased the achene yield by 48% compared to the control, however, application of N-P-K chemical fertilizer or of 15 t ha−1FYM improved achene yield only up to 17% over the no fertilizer condition. Moreover, this work revealed some positive effects of exogenous application of nSiO2on safflower growth. This finding suggests that application of organic fertilizers with foliar spray of nSiO2can improve safflower production and is an advisable agronomic option.

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The fruit characteristics of new strawberry genotypes reflect their value for the present and future breeding programs. Beyond the agronomic characteristics, the evaluation of biometric, colorimetric and biochemical characteristics of fresh fruits complete the description of strawberry genotypes. Starting from these ideas, the aim of present study was to evaluate the biometric, colorimetric and biochemical characteristics of seven strawberry cultivars and selections. In this respect, a study was carried out in the experimental field of the Small Fruit and Strawberry Department belongings to Research Institute for Fruit Growing Pitesti, Romania, during years 2016 and 2017. The analysed quality characteristics of the strawberry fruits were the following: biometric characteristics (plant yield, weight, diameter, length and firmness of the fruits), colorimetric characteristics (lightness, hue angle, Chroma index, chromaticity) and biochemical characteristics (pH, total soluble solids, total acidity, soluble solids/total acidity ratio, total sugars, vitamin C, total polyphenols). The evaluation of the quality characteristics of the seven studied strawberry genotypes highlighted the differences among them. The results of this study highlights that selection 08-10-5 has the potential to become a new and valuable variety considering some of the most important fruit quality characteristics (colour parameters analysed, pH, total soluble solids, soluble solids/total acidity ratio and also by the content of vitamin C and total polyphenols).