Many plants, including anise, have tiny, non-uniform seeds with low and light nutrient reserves. The seeds also show a weak establishment, especially under stressful conditions where their accurate planting in the soil and optimal yield are tough. This study sought to improve anise seeds' physical and physiological characteristics under drought stress. To this end, two factorial experiments under laboratory and greenhouse conditions were performed in a completely randomized design with 4 and 3 replications, respectively. Five levels of seed inoculation (inoculation with T36 and T43 of Trichoderma harzianum, and CHA0 and B52 of Pseudomonas fluorescent, and non-inoculation which means that control seeds were not treated with microbial inoculant), three levels of coating (K10P20, K10P10V5, and non-coating), and three levels of drought stress (0, -3, and -6 bars) were considered as the factorial experiment [vermiculite (V), kaolin (K), and perlite (P) numbers refer to the amount of material used in grams]. The laboratory experiment revealed that the combined treatments of bio-agents with coating increased the physical and germination characteristics of anise seeds compared to the control treatment. The greenhouse experiment showed that drought stress reduced the initial growth indices. Still, the combination treatments of biological agents and coating (fillers) could alleviate the destructive effects of drought stress to some extent and improve these indices. The best treatment was provided by T36 and K10P20 in both experiments, which significantly increased morphological indices.

Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding Agriculture Institute Research Institute of Zabol Zabol Iran

Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding Faculty of Agriculture University of Tehran Tehran Iran

Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding Yasouj University Yasouj Iran

Department of Botany and Microbiology College of Science King Saud University Riyadh Saudi Arabia

Department of Botany Hindu College Moradabad India

Department of Geology and Pedology Mendel University in Brno Brno Czechia

Department of Microbiology PSGVP Mandal's S 1 Patil Arts G B Patel Science and STKV Sangh Commerce College Shahada India

Finnish Museum of Natural History University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland

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