مجله تحقیقات گیاهان دارویی و معطر ایران
سال سی و هفتم شماره 5 (پیاپی 109، آذر و دی 1400)

To study the effects of different nitrogen levels (0, 70, 140, and 210 mg l-1) on some growth, biochemical, and nutrient uptake (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) characteristics and essential oil content in sage (Salvia officinalis L.) under hydroponic conditions, a pot experiment was conducted based on a completely randomized design with four replications in the research greenhouse of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad in 2019. The results of means comparison showed that with increasing the nitrogen level, the plant growth characteristics increased, so that the 210 mg l-1 N treatment decreased the stem diameter, number of branches, nodes, and leaves, length of internodes, length and leaf width, fresh and stem dry weight, fresh and aerial parts dry weight, and aerial parts dry weight to root dry weight ratio by 54.19, 72.59, 39.49, 82.52, 51.42, 72.20, 71.46, 95.17, 90.31, 95.82, 92.30, and 83.46%, respectively compared to the no N application. The application of 210 mg l-1 N increased the relative content of leaf water (RWC), proline, and essential oil content by 9.57, 266.6, and 14.87% and decreased the electrolyte leakage and malondialdehyde by 30.45 and 51.51%, respectively compared to the no N application. Also, the lowest N level decreased the K, P, and N content by 32.65, 85.13, and 56.89%, respectively compared to the highest N level. The results of this experiment showed that different N levels could have different effects on the growth and essential oil content of sage. Based on the present research findings, the application of 210 mg l-1 N could be recommended for the sage cultivation due to the improving effects on the studied traits of the plant.

To investigate the effects of rice husk biochar application on the various physiological and biochemical characteristics (fresh and aerial parts dry weight, plant height, percentage and essential oil yield,and  content of chlorophylls, carotenoids, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) of peppermint (Mentha piperita L.) under different irrigation regimes, a factorial pot experiment with different levels of biochar (0, 3, and 6 t.ha-1) and irrigation (100% of full irrigation (control), 60, 80, and 120% of full irrigation) was conducted in a completely randomized design with four replications in the research greenhouse of Lorestan University in 2019. The results showed that the highest and lowest of aerial parts fresh weight were obtained in the 3 t.ha-1 biochar + 120% of full irrigation (24.2 g.pot-1) and 3 t.ha-1 biochar + 60% of full irrigation (13.3 g.pot-1) treatments, respectively. At the 60% of full irrigation level, the dry weight, height, essential oil yield, and N and P concentration of the plant aerial parts significantly decreased by 39.8, 33.3, 26.2, 17.2, and 8.7%, respectively compared to the control; while the essential oil percentage and K concentration of aerial parts had an increasing trend. The amount of a, b, and total chlorophyll, and carotenoids decreased under the water stress conditions. The highest amount of total chlorophyll was observed in the 6 t.ha-1 biochar + 100% of full irrigation treatment. The application of 6 t.ha-1 biochar increased the fresh and aerial parts dry weight, plant height, percentage and essential oil yield, photosynthetic pigments, and N, P, and K concentration of aerial parts compared to the no biochar application, significantly. The results showed that the 6 t.ha-1 biochar + 120% of full irrigation treatment increased most of the traits studied. However, due to the importance of peppermint in terms of essential oil production, the highest essential oil percentage was obtained at the highest level of water stress.

Teucrium stocksianum Boiss. belongs to the fam. lamiaceae. In this study, the different plant organs (leaves, flowers, and stalks) of this species were collected from NikShahr region of Sistan & Balouchestan province and examined for the content and essential oil composition variability. The samples essential oil was extracted by hydro-distillation and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The average essential oil content of flowers, leaves, and stalks was obtained 0.68, 0.42, and 0.13% (w/w), respectively. Also, 33, 35, and 32 compounds were identified in the flowers, leaves, and stalks essential oil, respectively. The α-pinene (8.6-23%), β-pinene (4.9-10%), δ-cadinene (4.3-24.6%), caryophyllene oxide (1.4-8.6%), and viridiflorol + guaiol (6.1-7.6%) were the major essential oil compounds. The flowers and leaves essential oil was rich in monoterpene hydrocarbons (35.6 and 50.3%, respectively), whereas the stalks essential oil was characterized with the high content of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (42.3%). The findings of this study showed that the T. stocksianum flowers had the potential to produce more essential oil than the leaves and stems.

The ecological, economic, and social benefits of agroforestry operations over the integrated agriculture are well-recognized, but failure to use the fertilizers and low profitability of the agroforestry systems may be a reason for the low acceptance of these systems by farmers. In this study, a factorial split-split plot experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design with three replications to investigate the effects of bio-, organic, and chemical fertilizers on the improvement of yield, qualitative traits, and the greater profitability of this system. The medicinal species at two levels, fertilizer at five levels, and tree species at two levels were considered as the main-, sub-, and sub-sub plots, respectively. The tree species including cherry (Prunus avium L.) and walnut (Juglans regia L.) were selected for the agroforestry system and the medicinal species including coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) and flixweed (Descurainia sophia (L.) Schur) were cultivated understorey of this system. Four fertilizer treatments including the organic manure (3 kg.m-2)+humic acid organic fertilizer (AgriPlus) (0.5 kg.100 l-1 of water.100 m-2), Mycomix endomycorrhizal biofertilizer (100 g.m-2), Bioazospir bacterial fertilizer (200 g.100 kg of seed), and chemical fertilizer based on the soil analysis (75 kg of urea, 150 kg of triple superphosphate, and 150 kg of potassium sulfate at the beginning of sowing+100 kg of potassium sulfate 30 days after sowing and another 100 kg two months after sowing per hectare) were examined with the control (without fertilizer). The results showed that the plant height and 1000-seed weight at the 5% probability level and the plant fresh and dry weight, number of seeds per spike, seed yield per plant and hectare, and percentage of protein, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium per seeds at the 1% probability level were significantly affected by the fertilizer treatments in flixweed. In coriander, the plant height, leaves and stems fresh yield, number of seeds per umbel and plant, biological and economic yield, and percentage and essential oil yield were significantly affected by the fertilizer treatments at the 1% probability level, too. In flixweed, the organic fertilizer, bioazospir, mycorrhiza, and chemical fertilizer caused the highest amount of studied traits, respectively and the control treatment caused the lowest one. In coriander, the mycorrhizal fertilizer, organic fertilizer, bioazospir, and chemical fertilizer resulted in the highest amount of studied traits, respectively and the control treatment caused the lowest one. Also, both medicinal plants showed much better performance in the combined cultivation with the cherry tree. Among the various combinations in the cultivation, the combined cultivation of coriander with cherry tree was selected as the best one.

Plants from the fam. lamiaceae are the rich sources of medicinal compounds with the anticancer properties. In many studies, only the anticancer properties of these compounds have been investigated and their toxicity on the healthy cells has not been addressed. The present study was designed to evaluate and compare the toxic effects of Origanum vulgare L. and O. majorana L. essential oils on the cancer cells line BCL-1 and normal lymphocytes and macrophages under in vitro conditions. The plant samples essential oils were extracted using the hydro-distillation method and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. The cancer cells line BCL-1 and normal lymphocytes and macrophages were cultured with the various concentrations of essential oils for 24h. The viability and cells toxicity under the influence of essential oils were determined by the MTT and LDH assays. The GC/MS results showed that the two essential oils had only 12 common components. Both essential oils inhibited the growth of cancer cells line BCL-1 (O. vulgare, 47-79% and O. majorana, 30-82%) at a concentration of 0.01-1% (O. vulgare essential oil IC50: 0.01% and O. majorana essential oil IC50: 0.03%). The essential oils at the highest concentration (1%) did not decrease the immune cells viability. Also, according to the LDH test results, none of the concentrations of both essential oils had a toxic effect on the normal lymphocytes and macrophages. Overall, based on the present study results, the O. vulgare and O. majorana essential oils could be recommended as good candidates for the cancer treatment because they had no cytotoxic effect on the normal immune system cells in addition to having the strong anticancer properties.

The acetylcholinesterase (AChE) function is to hydrolyze the acetylcholine (ACh). This enzyme is irreversibly inhibited by the organophosphate compounds of insecticides and nerve gases. This inhibition by the ACh accumulation in the cholinergic synapses leads to the overstimulation and cholinergic crisis in the synaptic cleft. This study was aimed at reactivating the inhibited cholinesterase (ChE) by the Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat. hydroalcoholic extract. The effects of Ch. morifolium hydroalcoholic extract were evaluated on the activity and ChE reactivation by the Elman staining method. The erythrocyte AChE and plasma butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) were the enzyme sources in this study. The antioxidant activity, identification of functional groups, and determination of compounds in the extract were determined by DPPH, FTIR, and GC/MS methods, respectively. The results showed that the reactivation rate of inhibited BChE (the amount of losing activity in the enzyme inhibited = up to 91.95% ± 0.17) was obtained 49.16% ± 0.24 in the 1 mg.ml-1 of chrysanthemum extract treatment. In this experiment, the AChE enzyme was inhibited up to 30.77% ± 0.45 by paraoxon, which the 1 mg.ml-1 of chrysanthemum extract restored it and eliminated the paraoxon toxicity. The IC50 in the chrysanthemum hydroalcoholic extract for scavenging the DPPH free radicals was calculated 483.67 ± 3 μg.ml-1. The results of FTIR and GC/MS also showed that the extract of this plant is rich in the phenolic compounds containing the hydroxyl and carbonyl groups, which probably play a key role in the antioxidant activity of this plant extract. The findings of this study showed that the chrysanthemum hydroalcoholic extract had very high antioxidant properties due to its phenolic compounds and could be recommended as an antidote to the organophosphate toxins such as paraoxon.

Black cumin (Nigella sativa L.) seeds are used in the traditional medicine in many countries to prevent and treat many disorders and diseases including cough, asthma, nasal congestion, headache, toothache, intestinal worms, menstrual disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, and impotence. To study the effects of humic acid and iron nanochelate on the content of osmotic protective osmolites including glucose, fructose, sucrose, proline, superoxide dismutase, catalase, and peroxidase of medicinal plant black cumin under the drought stress conditions, an experiment was conducted as a split factorial based on the randomized complete block design with three treatments in three replications at the Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Station of Eqlid city during two crop years of 2018 and 2019. The main plot consisted of three levels of irrigation (50, 75, and 100% of available water) and sub-plots included humic acid (0, 250, and 500 mg l-1) and iron nanochelate (0, 1, and 2 g l-1). The results showed that the effects of irrigation, humic acid, and iron chelate treatments on the catalase, superoxide dismutase, glucose, and peroxidase content, irrigation treatments on the proline content, and irrigation and humic acid treatments on the sucrose and fructose content were significant. The content of all protective osmolites increased in the 50% drought stress treatment. The highest content of glucose, fructose, and sucrose was obtained in the 50% drought stress, 500 mg l-1 humic acid, and 2 g l-1 iron nanochelate treatment. Overall, based on the results of this experiment, the application of humic acid fertilizer (500 mg l-1) and iron nanochelate (2 g l-1) could be recommended to reduce the effects of drought stress on black cumin.

Salinity is one of the most important and common environmental stresses that affects the quantitative and qualitative yield of many plants. Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L.) is one of the most well-known medicinal plants, which is used in the cure of many diseases due to its various effective compounds such as trigonelline. This study was aimed at investigating the effects of salinity stress on the yield components and some physiological and biochemical characteristics of four fenugreek populations under the greenhouse conditions. The pot factorial experiment was conducted in a completely randomized design with three replications. The experimental factors included four populations (Neishabour, Shirvan, Shiraz, and Ardakan) and four salinity levels (0, 30, 60, and 90 mM). At the final stages of growth, the traits including the relative water content (RWC), number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, 1000-seed weight, and content of soluble sugars, proline, and trigonelline were measured in the mature plants. The salinity stress decreased the yield traits such as the number of pods per plant, number of seeds per pod, and 1000-seed weight in the all populations studied. The results showed that the salinity stress also decreased the concentration of soluble sugars and RWC, but increased the content of proline and trigonelline in the seeds. The population Shiraz was superior to the others in terms of the traits studied and showed more efficient mechanisms to tolerate the stress conditions.

DNA barcoding technique is a useful tool for the identification of plant and animal species using a short and standard sequence of the genome. In the present study, this method was used to identify four plant species including Calendula persica C.A.Mey., Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn., Satureja mutica Fisch. & C.A.Mey., and Malva neglecta Wallr. from the eastern Golestan province. The DNA was extracted by CTAB method and the PCR was performed with the primers designed based on the rbcL and trnH-psbA chloroplast barcodes and ITS nuclear barcode. The results of sequences were matched with the information in the NCBI database. The results showed that the all three barcodes were suitable for the samples studied due to their high resolution, low SNP number, and comprehensiveness in most species. Also, the barcodes comparison of the species collected from the rangelands and perfumeries showd that some plant species that are offered in the perfumeries are different from the plants that the natives use as medicine. It could be mentioned that the mistakes possibility in the medicinal plants offered in the perfumeries is undeniable. Therefore, the study on the other plant species in the perfumeries by the DNA barcoding method could be recommended as a necessity.

Nepeta is one of the most important genus from the fam. lamiaceae with more than 280 species. In this study, N. haussknechtii Bornm. was collected at the flowering stage from Ardabil province, Iran and its chloroform extract was prepared. The chloroform crude extract was subjected to the successive column chromatography on the silica gel using n-hexane–ethyl acetate solvent gradient to yield 29 fractions. Further purification of the fraction No.5 resulted in the isolation of one known steroid namely β-sitosterol (1). In addition, the known triterpenoid oleanolic acid (2) was identified from the purification of the more polar fraction No.9. The compounds were assigned by the mass spectrometry, IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR, DEPT, and 1H1H COSY. Finally, the structures of compounds were confirmed by comparison of the spectral data with those described in the literature.

Annually a significant portion of agricultural products is destroyed by the stored products pests. The chemical pesticides are commonly used to control pests. The residual hazards of pesticides on the storage products as well as increase in the pest resistance necessitate the selection of safe and effective control methods. The plant compounds can be the subject of researches on the storage pests control with the low-risk methods. Therfore, this experiment was conducted to study the effects of peel essential oil from three Citrus spp. including Citrus limon L., C. sinensis L., and C. aurantium L. on the adults of Callosobruchus maculatus F., Sitophilus granarius L., and Tribolium confusum Duv. The probit analysis was performed after 24 and 48 hours to evaluate the effects of essential oils on the pests. After determining the LC50 and LC25, the combinations of C. limon LC25 + C. aurantium LC25, C. limon LC25 + C. sinensis LC25, and C. sinensis LC25 + C. aurantium LC25 were tested to evaluate the combined effects of essential oils. The treatments had three replications and each replicate was performed on ten two-days-old adult insects in a completely randomized design. Also, the essential oils were analyzed by GC/MS to evaluate their major constituents. The LC50 value (µl.l-1) of essential oils of C. limon, C. sinensis, and C. aurantium was 3.8, 2.65, and 3.11 after 24 hours and 2.48, 1.93, and 2.88 after 48 hours on the S. granaries adults, 0.23, 2.41, and 2.66 after 24 hours and 0.13, 1.38, and 2.35 after 48 hours on C. maculatus, and 5.33, 2.76, and 1.35 after 24 hours and 24.2, 2.49, and 0.89 after 48 hours on T. confusum, respectively. The study on the combined effects of essential oils showed that the C. limon LC25 + C. sinensis LC25 treatment was more effective than the effect of each essential oil alone on all three pests. According to the results of this study, the use of Citrus peel essential oil, especially C. limon, could be recommended in the production of bio-pesticides.