Afsaneh Rashnoo - Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran
Zahra Movahedi - Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran
Majid Rostami - Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran
Mehdi Ghabooli - Department of Agronomy and Plant Breeding, Faculty of Agriculture, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran

In two independent experiments, acclimatized chicory plants were transferred into an aeroponic system and to the soil. Then, the effects of biofertilizer (Nitrokara) and culture filtrate of Piriformospora indica were investigated on some plant characteristics in both aeroponic and soil cultivation system under greenhouse conditions. The plants were foliar sprayed with three different biofertilizer concentrations (۱, ۲, and ۳ g/L) and P. indica culture filtrate (۲.۵, ۵, and ۷.۵ mL in ۱۰۰ mL water) following ۲۰, ۴۰ and ۶۰ days after transplanting to the aeroponic and soil culture media. Results showed that the highest vegetative growth (e.g. plant height, root length, number of leaves per plant, root and shoot dry weights) and physiological traits (e.g. relative water content, proline, anthocyanin content, chlorophyll a, and chlorophyll b) were observed with ۷.۵ mL of P. indica culture filtrate in both aeroponic and soil culture media. Besides, the best results for all studied traits were obtained from ۳ g/L of biofertilizer application in the both culture media. In both experiments, better results were obtained from the aeroponic system than the soil culture for P. indica production.

Biofertilizer, Medicinal plant, Soilless culture, chicory