Reducing methyl eugenol content in Rosa damascena Mill rose oil by changing the traditional rose flower harvesting practices

Methyl eugenol (ME) is a naturally occurring carcinogenic compound found in a number of essential oils including rose oil distilled from Rosa damascena Mill flowers. In the current study, we evaluate the effect of flower harvesting practices on the ME content in the produced rose oil. The obtained results show nearly twice reduction in ME content in the rose oil distilled from petals of full-blown flowers. At the same time, GC/MS analysis of rose oils distilled from stages 3 and 4 rose flower buds (flower buds prior opening of petals) showed more than 5 times ME reduction and preservation of the relative content of the major rose oil compounds. Moreover, the comparative study of rose flower yield and rose oil content of rose buds and full-blown flowers showed that harvesting of rose flower buds results in above three times increase in the formed flower buds from the studied rose plants and more than twice increase in the rose flower and rose oil yields for the same rose plantation areas. The overall results from this study allow us to propose a change in the traditional full-blown rose flower harvesting to harvesting of rose flower buds at stages 3 and 4 during the entire flowering period.