ISHS Acta Horticulturae 73: I International Symposium on Spices and Medicinal plants
INFLUENCE OF IRRIGATION ON THE CONTENTS OF EFFECTIVE SUBSTANCES IN OFFICINAL PLANTS |
| Author: | M. Penka |
| Abstract:
Increasing the per-hectare yields of culture plants important in economic respect involves both quantity and quality of their production. A number of authors have brought enough evidence to indicate that both high yield and quality production is obtainable on the assumption that irrigation (water) has been properly applied (Tageyeva 1931, 1941, 1946; Viljams 1951; Maksimov 1952a, b; Pietinov 1958, 1959; Banoch and Slepicka 1963; Penka et al. 1973; and other authors). Since the content of effective substances is decisive for quality of the product in officinal plants and the same is utilizable as an accurate indicator of the production, some species producing either essential oils or alkaloids were selected for studying the effects of irrigation as reflected in the quality of the product received. The properties of the species from these two groups of plants show differences in both ecological and physiological respect, for essential oils are the product of the respiratory, catabolic processes, while alkaloids are the result of photosynthesis, anabolic processes. As a rule, the formation and accumulation of essential oils tends to rising the more the drier (at an extreme level) the environment is where the plants are living in. On the other hand, the formation and accumulation of alkaloids is dependent, apart from isolation, also on a sufficiently high content of physiologically available water in the soil. The plant species that produce essential oils did not reveal any conspicuous formation and accumulation of alkaloids; conversely, in the plants that produce alkaloids, no evident formation and accumulation of essential oils was observed (Gildemeister and Hoffmann 1956, 1959, 1960). Some of the results obtained in our studies of the plant species that produce essential oils are given as diagrams in figures 1 to 10. | |
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