effect of drought stress and salicylic acid on yield and yield component of bean genotypes

in order to evaluate the effect of salicylic acid on yield and yield components of bean genotypes under water deficit stress, an experiment was carried out as a factorial split plot design with three replications in research farm bu ali-sina university (hamadan, iran) during 2009. stress levels: consist of vegetative water stress, reproduction water stress and without water stress (control) and three bean genotypes (‘akhtar’, ‘d81083’ and ‘ks31169’) allocated in the main plots and three concentrations of salicylic acid 0, 0.5 and 1 mm to the sub-plots. based on results the treatments had significant effects on plant height, number of branches, pod number per plant, seeds per pod, 100 seed weight, biological yield, grain yield and harvest index. vegetative and reproductive drought stresses reduced grain yield but foliar application of salicylic acid improved the growth and yield of bean. utilizing salicylic acid in vegetative and reproductive stages improved the grain yield 17.2 and 16.8 percent, respectively. such this result observed for biological yield too. totally this research showed that between the genotypes of experiment, the ‘d81083’ and ‘akhtar’ genotypes had higher grain yield and harvest index compared to ‘ks31169’. foliar application of salicylic acid not only improved the growth and yield in no-stress condition but also for adjusting the drought stress especially at vegetative stress is recommended