TABLE 2.

Effects of soil water content and inoculation of sunflowers with Rhizobium sp. strain YAS34 on plant growth parameters and the production of RAS in two independent experiments^a

Compartment	Expt no.b	Value for treatment groupc:				LSD	n	Significance of effectd:
		NI/NWS	Inoc/NWS	NI/WS	Inoc/WS			Inoculation	Water stress	Interaction
Shoots	1	41.6 a	48.2 b	40.2 a	43.7 a	4.0	9	***	*	NS
	2	75.1 a	114.5 c	81.1 a	91.8 b	8.2	12	***	**	***
RT	1	14.8 ab	17.9 b	11.5 a	14.8 ab	3.8	9	*	*	NS
	2	51.0 a	89.2 c	59.2 ab	65.2 b	8.3	12	***	**	***
RAS	1	287 b	565 c	109 a	281 b	92	9	***	***	NS
	2	714 b	1,555 c	488 a	878 b	189	7	***	***	**
RAS/RT ratio	1	19.4 b	32.8 c	9.5 a	19.4 b	5.0	9	***	***	NS
	2	14.0 b	17.1 c	9.1 a	13.8 b	2.2	7	***	***	NS

^aAbbreviations: NI, noninoculated; NWS, non-water stressed; Inoc, inoculated; WS, water stressed; NS, nonsignificant. 

^bExperiment 1, 16-day-old plantlets without nitrogen supply; experiment 2, 15-day-old plantlets with nitrogen supply. 

^cFor shoots, RT, and RAS, values are shown as milligrams per plant; for RAS/RT ratio, values are milligrams to milligrams. Values followed by the same letter(s) indicate homogeneous groups (P < 0.05 [LSD]) after line-by-line variance analysis. 

^d*, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.