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The roots of Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of drought stress on growth and active constituents composition in S. miltiorrhiza. Three water-stress treatments, including control, medium drought stress and severe drought stress, were applied on the whole growth cycle. The results showed that drought stress significantly decreased both shoot and root dry weight in S. miltiorrhiza, but increased the root to shoot ratio at later growth cycle. Except rosmarinic acid the other active constituents content increased under water-stress conditions. Water stress significantly increased salvianolic acid B yield, and decreased that of tanshinone IIA. Our study suggests that it might be feasible to improve or develop S. miltiorrhiza cultivation methods under semi-arid and arid regions. Crown Copyright (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.