Effects of temperature and light intensity on morphological and phytochemical characters and antioxidant potential of wormwood (Artemisia absinthium L.)

2018 
Abstract The effect of temperature and light intensity on the growth and the production of active ingredients of Artemisia absinthium L. was studied. To this purpose, young plants of two wormwood accessions with different geographical origin were grown for 14 weeks in climatic chambers under two controlled conditions identified as "warm" and "cold", respectively. Both the tested environments (warm, with temperature from 18 °C/10 °C to 27 °C/19 °C and 16 klx light intensity, and cold, with increasing temperature from 13 °C/8 °C to 18 °C/10 °C and 8 klx light intensity) were with 14h day/10h night rhythm. The results showed that the leaf blade thickness of both accessions increased and an approximately 50% higher biomass was achieved in the “warm” chamber. Volatile compounds were accumulated in both the wormwood accessions, but some differences, mostly quantitative, in the chemical composition of their essential oils could were observed. In particular, it was found that Spanish accession was a “ cis -epoxy-ocimenechemotype, while the Hungarian accession had a variable profile with sabinene and â-myrcene as the most characteristic components. The ratio of cis -chrysanthenyl acetate grew from 8.0% (in the “cold” chamber) to 13.8% (in the “warm” chamber) in the Spanish plants, while sabinene increased from 2.3% to 10.8% and β-myrcene rose from 8.0% to 16.5% in the “warm” and “cold” chambers, respectively in the Hungarian samples. The total phenolic content (44% increase) and the FRAP antioxidant capacity (77% increase) were detected under higher temperature conditions, especially in the Spanish accession. In this respect, significant differences between the accessions appeared only in the “warm” chamber.
    • Correction
    • Source
    • Cite
    • Save
    • Machine Reading By IdeaReader
    26
    References
    1
    Citations
    NaN
    KQI
    []