Determination of alkaloid content in stem of Mahonia bealei (Fort.)Carr using HPLC during different harvesting seasons

The present study was conducted to determine the appropriate harvest period for Mahonia bealei and to evaluate its quality.The high-performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) method was used to measure the contents and study the accumulation trend of three kinds of alkaloids viz.,jatrorrhizine,palmatine and berberine in stem of Mahonia bealei,collected during different months.The results showed that amongst the three alkaloids,proportion of jatrorrhizine was the highest.Further,the total content of alkaloids in stem of Mahonia bealei was the highest when harvested in August,followed by November and April,and it was the lowest in May.Therefore,the suitable harvesting time for Mahonia bealei is found to be August in order to get the maximum alkaloids.