INFLUENCE OF FERTILIZERS ON THE CONTENT OF ACTIVE COMPOUNDS IN SPICE CROPS AND MEDICINAL PLANTS

For a long time field and garden plants were the main point of scientific research, but since the medicinal and spice plants have been cultivated intensively, they as well have become a focal point of research in respect of the influence of fertilizers on the yield and the constituents and quality of the active compounds.

This research, initiated at the beginning of this century, has been much intensified during the past 20 to 30 years. The results, however, are frequently at variance, and this leads to contradictory opinions on the influence and efficiency of mineral fertilizers upon medicinal and spice plants.

These circumstances were the reason why we recently began to make an attempt to gain some oversight on the most important work done in this field.

The establishment of a synthesis of the results achieved in fertilizer trials does not appear to be easy. The points of departure and applied methodics are often very different and many articles have been published in periodicals difficult to come by. Finally the fertilizer problems appear to be very varied and complex.

Owing to limited time, our survey is dealing only with the main fertilizer trials (NPK) and this in regard to increased applications. We want to discuss the influence of mineral fertilizers on the constituents of active compounds in the drug and we want to concentrate on the three most important groups of active substances such as: essential oils, cardenolidglycosides, and alkaloids, above all in respect of the plants grown in the European zone.

Taking into consideration, of course, the influence of the fertilizers on the plant mass and drug yield as well as the amount of active substances produced in the area cultivated.

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