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Soilless cultivation represents a promising method for the future of the horticulture industry as it offers advantages such as improved quality control over the growth environment and mitigation of uncertainties related to soil, water, and nutrient availability. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of different environments, specifically greenhouse (GH) and open-field (OF), on the growth, phenotypic characteristics, physio-biochemical properties, qualitative parameters, and antioxidant capacity of strawberries cultivated using a soilless system. The aforementioned parameters were measured in both the GH and OF settings. Our findings revealed that the growth, yield, and morphological parameters were significantly higher in the GH environment compared to the OF. However, when considering fruit quality indices such as fruit texture firmness, fruit dry matter percentage, taste index (TSS/TA ratio), and post-harvest shelf-life, the OF cultivation method exhibited significantly superior results. Moreover, various aspects, related to plant physiology and biochemistry, antioxidant enzyme activity, total antioxidant capacity (DPPH), vitamin C content, and secondary metabolites, were found to be significantly higher in the OF environment compared to the GH. Overall, the results of our study suggest that OF soilless cultivation outperforms GH cultivation in terms of fruit quality, antioxidant capacity, and post-harvest shelf-life. Despite the observed decrease in fruit growth and yield, soilless strawberries grown in OF are likely to yield a final product of higher quality and nutritional value compared to those cultivated in a GH environment. These findings highlight the potential of OF soilless cultivation as a viable approach for strawberry production, emphasizing the importance of considering not only yield but also qualitative aspects and the nutritional value. Further exploration and optimization of soilless cultivation techniques in OF settings could contribute to the advancement of sustainable horticultural practices.

Lallemantia iberica is an annual, herbaceous and drought tolerant plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, which is cultivated for its seeds. Diversity of 12 dragons head landraces were studied for phenotypic and genotypic variations using agro-morphological traits and some drought tolerance indices. Field study was conducted in the spring of 2013 as a randomized complete block design with three replicates in Maragheh. Results of analysis of variance showed that there was significant difference among the studied landraces for all agro-morphological traits under study between the experimental sites. Combined analysis for grain yield showed that there were significant differences between the experimental sites. The average grain yields were in the range of 730 to 1380 kg.ha-1 under complementary irrigated condition and from 360 to 680 kg.ha-1 under rainfed conditions. Kalibar and Nazarlo landraces for all parameters were highly drought tolerant. Cluster analysis grouped these populations into three distinct clusters. The results also indicated that plant height and days to flowering under complementary irrigation and main branches under rainfed conditions exhibited highest correlations with seed yields.