Agricultural and Biological Research

Organic fertilisers and water stress effects on seed viability and plant growth of Artemisia annua L. in Burkina Faso

Adama Pascal Kihindo, Nerbéwendé Sawadogo*, Edmond Dondasse, Ahmed Traore and Gerard Zombre

Artemisia annua L. is an annual plant originary from China and mainly cultivated for its antimalarial properties. The present study aims to promote the efficient production of aerial biomass and viable seeds of the species. Artemisia annua plants were evaluated in a factorial block with three replications under two factors. This is water stress with three modalities (unstressed, stressed during vegetative stage, stressed during flowering stage) and organic fertilizer with also three levels (no fertilizer, compost, fertile soil). The results showed that unstressed plants fertilized with fertile soil significantly produced (p<0.0001) more above-ground biomass (31.91 ± 0.64 g) than unstressed plants fertilized with compost (20.90 ± 1.24 g) and unstressed and unfertilized plants (6.41 ± 0.52 g). In addition, transpiration by unstressed plants was greater in the presence of organic fertiliser, with average quantities of water loss of 14.12 ± 1.2 g per hour in the fertile soil and 11.27 ± 1.0 g per hour in the compost, compared with 8.95 ± 0.7 g per hour in the control. We also found that seeds of plants in fertile soil and stressed at the flowering stage had a significantly (p<0.0001) higher germination rate (92.74 ± 3.79%) than the unstressed and unfertilized control plants (54.69 ± 2.65%). The results obtained from this study could be used for Artemisia production and vulgarization.