Background and objective: Due to the constant decline in arable land, it is essential to identify the best areas for sustainable agriculture. Materials and Methods: In the present study, the factor analysis (FA) by principal component analysis (PCA) method as multivariate statistical was applied to evaluate the Land suitability zonation of 36700 points for Ferula plantation in North Khorasan Province, NE Iran. For this purpose, extracted 16 variables were processed, resulting in four factors that explain about 90 % of the total variance.Results and conclusion: The explained variances of these factors varied from 25.519 to 9.078 % for factors 1 and 4 after the Varimax rotation, respectively. The zonation map of land suitability revealed that 27.02% (6885/93 km2) of the surface area was moderately suitable, 67/20% (17125/36 km2) was marginally applicable and 5.78% (1474.52 km2) of the region was unsuitable for Ferula production. The moderate suitability class of S2 was mainly distributed within the middle, and northeastern parts of the province, while the southern part of the study area and some scattered parts within the northwest exhibited unsuitability for Ferula production. Manuscript profile

Lack of knowledge of vital factors in the production and cultivation of plants in unsuitable areas can increase the use of chemical fertilizers to prevent a reduction in plant yield. In the present study, the factor analysis (FA) by principal component analysis (PCA) method as multivariate statistical was applied to evaluate the land suitability zonation of 36700 points for damask rose plantation in North Khorasan Province, NE Iran. For this purpose, the extracted 16 variables were processed, resulting in four factors that explain about 90% of the total variance. The explained variances of those factors are varied from 28.573 to 8.855% for factors 1 and 4 after the Varimax rotation, respectively. The zonation map of land suitability revealed that 2.61% (665.6 km2) of the surface area was highly suitable, 95.78% (24410.47km2) was moderately suitable and 1.61% (409.74 km2) of the region was marginally suitable for damask rose production. The geographical distribution revealed that the points with very high suitability are laid in the Western, middle, and Eastern parts of the study area, while the mid part of the study area and some scattered parts in the East, Northeast, and Northwest exhibited moderate suitability for damask rose. The most important limiting factors for the damask rose plantation in the study area were climatic factors including mean temperature during the growing cycle, mean temperature during the germination, and mean temperature during the flowering. Manuscript profile