Black zira is a perennial aromatic and medicinal plant from the Apiaceae family with persistent tuberous roots that its seeds are regarded as stimulants, carminatives and found to be useful in diarrhea and dyspepsia. In order to study the quantitative and qualitative criteria of black zira as an important medicinal plant affected by different rates of cow manure, a field experiment was performed as based on a randomized complete block design with three replications at Agricultural Research Station, College of Agriculture, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran during growing season of 2012-2013. Treatments were cow manure rates such as zero, 10, 20, 30 and 40 t.ha-1. The results indicated that the impact of different cow manure levels was significant (p≤0.01) on biological, seed and essential oil yield of black zira. The highest seed yield was recorded in 20 t.ha-1 cow manure with 62.21 g.m-2 and the lowest was for control with 49.43 g.m-2. The maximum and the minimum essential oil yield were achieved in 20 t.ha-1 and control with 364.14 and 247.68 g.m-2, respectively.

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