Abstract: Climate change in recent decades has increased the conditions of abiotic stress on plant growth, mainly by ariding large areas of land and reducing fresh water reserves.One of the solutions for increasing the efficiency of these lands and decreasing the irrigation rate by up to 50% - 70% is the incorporation in their structure of ecological and biodegradable hydrogels. Hydrogels are hightlyflexible, three –dimensional inflatable materials composed of polymers which have the property of absorbing and retaining a large amount of water, subsequently releasing the minto several absortion –release cycles. By their specific characteristics, they can lead to: Stimulating water retention capacity near seeds or roots, reducing the risk of waterloss by leaching or evaporation, increasing soil permeability, reducing soil degradation and inplicitly increasing quantitative and qualitative productivity. Due to these properties, hydrogels are finding a growing number of applications in both agriculture and horticulture. Being veryuseful in contioning and fertilizing soils, the first may have a stimulating effect : fast and uniform growth of fruit, physiological processes and development including aromatic and medicinal plants. On the basic of these observations, the influence of some hydrogels of Zeba SP and Terracotemtype oh the state of vegetation of aromatic and medicinal plants of the genus : Artemisia absinthium L., Artemisia lancea Vaniotand Artemisia lavandulaefolia DC wastested. The results of these research have shown that a better inflence and efficiencz of about 14%- 18% on the chosen plant sistreatedwithTerracotemcomparedtothat of Zeba SP.

Hydrogel, ZebaSP ,Teracottem, hydrophilic polymer, water retention

field crops and pastures

Presentation: poster