مجله تحقیقات گیاهان دارویی و معطر ایران
سال بیست و هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 55، بهار 1391)

Achillea biebersteinii Afan. is a member of Asteraceae and occurs wild in different parts of the world including Europe, Turkey, Iran and central Asia. In addition to traditional medicine, the plant is also considered in modern medicine and different industries because of its essential oil characteristics. The present study was conducted to investigate the essential oil content and composition of nine populations of A. biebersteinii collected from different ports of Khorassan Province. For this purpose, after calculating essential oil content of each population with three independent experiments, chemical constituents of oils were identified by means of GC and GC-MS analyses. The results showed that Golool (1.62%) and Chelmir (1.60%) contained the highest amount of essential oil. Totally, 23 components were characterized in the essential oil of all populations with oxygenated monoterpens (47.9-73.1%) as the principle fraction. While 1,8-cineole, nepetalactone, p-cymene, -terpinene and cis-chrysanthenyl acetate were identified as the prevalent constituents of all investigated essential oils, lavandulyl 2-methyl butyrate and cis-chrysanthenol were the rarest ones. Due to the high content of essential oil and high levels of 1,8-cineole, nepetalactone derivatives and p-cymene which are well-known biologically active compounds, Golool and Azghad populations seem to be suitable for application in relevant industries.

Ascorbate as a strong antioxidant has a considerable bio effect on growth of plants, such as increase in their tolerance against environment stresses. In this investigation, the effect of salt stress and its interaction with ascorbate on amount of proline, catalase and ascorbate peroxidase enzymes and MDA in a medicinal plant of Cuminum cyminum L. was randomly studied in the green house conditions with three replications. Plants were treated by different concentrations of NaCl (0, 25, 50, 75, 100, 125 mmolar) and ascorbate (9 mmolar). In the plants treated with salt, the amount of proline, antioxidant enzymes activity and MDA were increased with increasing NaCl concentrations. The plants treated with NaCl and ascorbate at the same time in a same NaCl concentration, the amount of proline, catalase activity, ascorbate peroxidase and MDA were increased. The results indicated that the ascorbate was one of the antioxidants that caused an increase in resistance of Cuminum cyminum L. to salt stress.

The genus Nepeta (Labiatae) with the common Persian name of “Pune-sa” includes 67 species in Iran and Nepeta schiraziana Boiss. is one of its endemic species. In this study, the stems, flowers and leaves of Nepeta schiraziana were collected from Sepidan region in north-west of Fars Province. The essential oils of stems, flowers and leaves of the plant were separately obtained by hydrodistillation and analyzed by GC and GC/MS. In each oils of the stem and flower, fourteen components were identified with 1,8-cineole (45.6% and 39.4%), germacrene D (17.4% and 15.8%), and β-caryophyllene (11.7% and 10.6%) as the main constituents, respectively. Furthermore, 1,8-cineole (38.5%), β-caryophyllene (14.2%), and caryophyllene oxide (11.7%) were the major components among the 18 constituents characterized in the leaf oil. As a result, 1,8-cineole was the dominant compound in the investigated oils while nepetalactone isomers reported in many Nepeta species, were not identified in Nepeta schiraziana.

In the present study, the genetic variation within and among some populations of Thymus migricus Klokov & Desj.-Shost was investigated using the RAPD markers. Twenty-one decamer RAPD primers produced 310 unique bands. RAPD analysis showed 14 monomorphic and 296 polymorphic bands in different genotypes. The number of polymorphic bands per primer varied from 5 to 20 with a mean of 14.09. Genetic distance was measured by Nei’s coefficient and cluster analysis was carried out. A dendrogram was drawn based on genetic distance data, applying the UPGMA clustering method. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) was performed. According to the dendrogram, among T. migricus populations, Band and Jolfa populations had maximum differences with a distance of 0.130. Evaluation of genetic diversity within populations with an average of Nei’s gene diversity analysis and Shannon’s information index, showed that diversity within population of Jolfa (h = 0.196 & I = 0.294) was more than other populations while genetic diversity within population of Ghushchi (h = 0.139 & I = 0.209) was less than other populations. Mean of Fst and Nm indexes which show gene flow among populations, were 0.30 and 1.14, indicating a greater gene flow among five populations of T. migricus. The results of the present study showed that there was a greater level of genetic variation in the Iranian natural populations of T. migricus which could be applied for future breeding programs.

In order to study the dormancy breaking ways and germination enhancment, seeds of 8 ecotypes of 4 species Satureja sahendica Bornm., S. bachtiarica Bunge, S. khuzistanica Jamzad and S. hortensis L. were collected on the base of geographycal distributions. A factorial experiment based on completely randomised design with three replications were used. The different treatments including: cold stratification, after-ripening, physical scarification (sand paper), chemical scarification (Ethylic alcohol 70%) and control were used for dormancy breaking. The treated seeds were sown in 3 petri dishes as replications. Then, all samples were placed in a germinator with condition of 20°C and light-to-dark cycle of 16 hours light (1000 lux) to 8 hours dark. The germination characteristics including: germination percentage, speed of germination, length of root and shoot, vigour index, fresh weight and dry weight were evaluated during 18 days of the experiment. There were significant differences amoung species for all seed germination characteristics. The ecotype of Khuzistan from S. khuzistanica had more seed germination and vigour compared to the other three species. The seed characteristics specially speed of germination and vigour index of ecotypes from cold zone were affected by cold treatment more than the other treatments.

The species of oak, the Quercus genus, is classified into Fagaceae family. Acorns (Quercus branti var persica Lindl.) have been traditionally used for treatment of many diseases such as diarrhea, collywobbles, hemorrhoid, rickets, anemia, eczema and varix. The objective of this research was extraction of phenolic compounds with various solvents and determination of antioxidant activity of the extracts in oxidative stability of sunflower oil. Phenolic compounds were extracted with methanol (80%), ethanol (70%) and water and total phenolic content was measured by Folin-Ciocalteu method. Extracts of acorns at three different concentrations (250, 500 and 1000 ppm), BHA and BHT at two concentrations of 100 and 200 ppm and TBHQ at 200 ppm were added to the sunflower oil and all samples were kept at 70°c for 12 days. Protective effects of the extracts in stabilizing sunflower oil were tested by measuring peroxide and thiobarbituric acid values at definite time intervals. Total phenolic content of water, ethanolic and methanolic extracts were 79.38, 138.49 and 183.96 (mg tannic acid equivalent/gr dry extract), respectively. During the experimental period, the peroxide and thiobarbitoric acid values of the control samples were raised from 26.23 to 328.88 (meq peroxide/ kg oil) and 0.073 to 0.58 (mg malon aldehyde/kg oil) respectively. TBHQ showed the highest oxidative stability at all days of the experiment. Methanolic extracts (at 500 and 1000ppm concentration) was the best among other extracts and stronger than BHT. Also, other extracts at various concentrations were comparable with BHA and BHT at different levels.

Fertilizer management is utmost important factor in success of pharmaceutical crops cultivation. Application of biological fertilizers is important in production of these plants with the aim of elimination or significant reduction of chemical inputs and also increase of soil fertility and improvement of plant growth and quality. Therefore, an experiment was conducted on basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) in greenhouse of Agriculture Faculty of Agriculture of Kurdistan University. A complete randomized design with five treatments and four replications were used. Treatments were nitroxin, biological phosphorus, nitroxin+biological phosphorus, chemical origin of nitrogen+phosphorus and control (no fertilizer). The results indicated significant effect of treatments on the dry weight of total shoots, plant height, number of leaves, leaf dry weight, photosynthesis, transpiration, essential oil content and yield, root dry weight, number of flowering branches and chlorophyll content. But, this effect was not significant on root length, stem dry weigh and sub-stomata CO2. The plant performanced better with application of chemical fertilizer and a mixture of nitroxin and biological phosphorus in terms of the mentioned criteria. Therefore, it could be concluded that biological fertilizers may be considered as a suitable replacement for a lot of chemical fertilizers consumption in sustainable agricultural systems.

Papaver somniferum L. today is considered as the commercial source of the narcotic analgesics morphine and codeine. Codeinone reductase is a key gene in metabolic engineering of isoquinoline alkaloids pathway with the ability of conversion of codeinone to codein and morphine. In this project, at first optimization of the gene transfer of P. somniferum was performed via A. tumefascience containing pBI121 plasmid. This gene then was cloned in expression vectors under control of CaMV35 promoter and transferred to plants by agro transformation. After preparing the structure, hypocotyl explants of P. somniferum was inoculated by agrobacterium carrying recombinant structures. HPLC analysis indicated the variation of the amount, type and percentage of alkaloid compounds in transgenic samples compared to the control plants. The result of the evaluation showed qualitative and quantitative changes in metabolite production of transgenic and control plants.

In order to investigate the effect of cultivation date on qualitative and quantitative traits of Cuminum cyminum L. under rainfed conditions, an experiment was conducted in a randomized completely blocks design with five cultivation dates as the treatments and four replications at research station of Sirch. Morphological traits and also seed production were recorded. The results showed that all studied traits of cultivation date had significant differences at level of 1% probability. There were also significant differences among all studied traits of the year except flowering date. No significant differences were recorded for the weight of the seed production in different years. According to the results of the mean comparisons, maximum values of the studied traits were recorded for the cultivation date of early February while maximum seed production and seed yield were obtained in 24th February. Therefore, regarding yield production 24th of February was identified as the best date for cultivation. Significant differences of the traits indicate the high variability of the climate conditions in Sirch Research Station.

Moringa peregrina (Forssk.) Fiori is one of the neglected Moringa species which is growing in a wide area of southeast part of Iran. The research was carried out by studying seedling growth parameters on 310 Moringa peregrina seedlings to investigate interrelationship between the growth parameters and their possible effects on seedling growth. Therefore, seed was collected from 21 single plants of the species across its habitats in southeast part of the country. Seedlings were grown in greenhouse conditions on which several seedling growth parameters were recorded after seedling establishment. The recorded data were analyzed based on completely randomized design model to assess the differences between the mother plants. To confirm the differences between the sampled single trees, all the possible paired correlation coefficients were estimated. To select the parameters specified by multiple regression analysis, path analysis was performed to investigate the direct and indirect relations between the independent parameters and plant height as the dependent parameter. Principal components analysis was also used to assess the interrelationship between the growth parameters. To classify the progenies of the single plants, the first and second components of the analysis were plotted and the results of the plot were compared to the results of cluster analysis. All the recorded traits showed a significant positive correlation with seedling height. Dividing the phenotypic correlation to the direct and indirect effects revealed that several traits affect the dependent parameters positively direct and negatively indirect, through other recorded growth parameters. Traits such as leaflet width with a positive simple correlation to the seedling height, showed a negative direct effect on the dependent parameter.

To study the effect of drought stress and harvesting date on yield and essential oil production of Anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), a field experiment was conducted at College of Agriculture, University of Zanjan during spring of 2010. The experiment was conducted as a factorial based on complete randomized block design with three replications. The effects of water stress in three levels including control, drought stress at flowering and grain filling stages and two harvesting dates including harvest at hard dough and maturity stages were investigated. The results showed that the effect of drought stress on seed yield, total dry matter, number of umbrella in plant, 1000-seed weight, harvest index, essential oil percentage and essential oil yield was significant (p≤0.05). Majority of the mentioned traits except essential oil percentage significantly decreased (p≤0.05) under drought stress conditions but essential oil percentage increased. So the highest grain yield (622 kg/ha) and essential oil yield (20.95 kg/ha) were obtained in control treatment (full irrigation). The results also showed that the effects of harvest date on seed yield, 1000-seed weight, total dry matter, essential oil percentage and harvest index were was significant (p≤0.01). The highest seed yield (501 kg/ha) and essential oil percentage (3.85) were obtained in hard dough and maturity stages respectively.

In order to investigate seed pre-treatment and irrigation interval effects on quantity and quality yield of the primed seeds of cumin (Cuminum ciminum L.), an experiment was carried out in research field of Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan in 2009. The study was conducted as a Factorial experiment based on RCBD with four levels of seed pre-treatment (Control or without pre-treatment, seed pre-treatment with distilled water, seed pre-treatment with -0.3 and -0.9 Mpa PEG solution) and different irrigation intervals (5, 7, 9 and 11 days). The results indicated that the seed yield was significantly decreased with increasing of irrigation intervals which was related to more decrease of umbel number and seed number per umbel. The results also indicated that the percentage of the essence was increased with increasing irrigation interval however it was decreased in 11-day irrigation interval. Thousand seed weight and harvest index were not affected by seed pre-treatment and irrigation intervals. The highest umbel number in plant (14.62) and seed number per umbel (13.16) were obtained in seed pre-treatment of -0.3 Mpa PEG (P3), and in 5 and 7-day irrigation intervals. Totally, the highest seed yield (628.7 kg.ha-1) was obtained in seed pre-treatment of -0.3 Mpa PEG (P3) and 5-day irrigation interval and the highest essence content (3.62 %) was obtained in pre-treatment of distilled water (P2) and 7-day irrigation interval.

St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) is an important medicinal plant that high percentages of hypericin in its leaves and flowers are considered as the most important feature of the Iranian species. Isotherm curves show the relationship between the air relative humidity and moisture content of the plant at constant temperature. Knowledge about isotherms is essential for storage and drying process. In this research, moisture equilibrium data of St. John’s wort’s leaves by adsorption were determined at 40, 50, 60 and 70°C and water activity ranging from 0.11-0.84 by using the gravimetric static method. Five mathematical models (Henderson, Halsey, Oswin, Chung-Pfost, and GAB) were used to fit the experimental data. Based on the results, the Chung-Pfost model was the best one for estimating adsorption isotherms curves of St. John’s wort’s leaves.

This paper is the first report on detection and determination of antioxidant compounds in seed oil of medicinal and edible shrub of Capparis spinosa L. collected from Dashte-Moghan. The results are expressed as the mean of three separate replications. Seed oil was extracted by hexane in a soxhelt apparatus and 2.36% was recorded as the total percentage of unsaponifiable matter. Detection and determination of some of the components of the unsaponifiable matter which have antioxidant properties shows that 0.27 % of the oil is related to sterols. β-sitosterol (60%), campestrol (13%) and stigmasterol (10%) are as the most abundant sterols and this oil has a great potential source of -avenasterol (7%). Moreover, the sterol composition of this oil is comparable to peanut oil and olive oil. Total content of tocopherols and tocotrienols was 93.43 ppm which is too close to olive oil. In addition, -isomer is predominant tocopherol. This oil is rich of beta-carotene (280mg/kg) that is close to the unbleached palm stearin. The total phenolic compounds were ignorable.

Nepeta L. genus belongs to Labiatae family that has important medicinal and aromatic species. More than 250 species in world and 67 annual and pernnial species in Iran have been reported. In this investigation, essential oil composition of Nepeta gloeocephala Rech. f., Nepeta sessilifolia Bunge and Nepeta laxiflora Benth have been staudied. The species are endemic to Iran and have natural habitats in Dorien, Ghohroud and Mashhad-e-ardahal of Kashan. The flowering branches of these species were collected in spring and summer and dried in shade (at room temperature). The flowering branches of the species subjected to volatile fraction were isolated by hydrodistillation using a Clevenger-type apparatus for 3 or 4 hours. After decanting and drying of the oils over anhydrous sodium sulfate, they were stored in vial at low temperature (4ºC) before analysis. The analysis of the oils was performed using GC and GC-MS. The results showed that, the essential oil of Nepeta gloeocephala Rech. f. was yellow in 1/3% (v/w) yield and 29 components were identified, among them, 1,8-Cineole (35.2%), Beta-pinene (21.8%), sabinene (7.8%), (E)-beta ocimen (7.1%), alpha-pinene (7.1%) and (Z)-ocimene (6.9%) were the major compounds. The essential oil of Nepeta sessilifolia Bunge was bright yellow in 0.65% (v/w) yield and 33 components were characterized, among them, spathulenol (25.8%), lavandulyl acetate (16.7%), limonene (6.4%) and geranyl acetate (4.17%) were identified. The essential oil of Nepeta laxiflora Benth was sharp yellow in 0.175% (v/w) yield and 30 components were identified, among them, alpha-pinene (19.7%), 1,8-cineole (11.8%), alpha-bisabolol (6.9%), delta-cadinene (6.8%), germacreneD-4-ol (6.2%), and caryophyllene oxide (4.4%) were main compounds.

Leaf area (LA) is a key variable for physiological studies, therefore accurate and simple models determining leaf area of plants are important for many experimental comparisons. Measuring the leaf area of Dracocephalum moldavica L. either as a medicinal plant or a vegetable is one of the most important factors. For this purpose, an experiment was conducted at research greenhouse of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. For estimation of leaf area of this plant, leaf dry weight, leaf fresh weight and leaf dimensions (width and length) were measured. Regression analyses of LA versus FW, DW, L and W revealed several models that could be used for estimating the area of individual leaves of Dracocephalum moldavica. Among all models studied in this experiment, LA = 0.510(L+W)0.946 and LA=0.510(L2×W2)0.473 provided the most accurate estimate (R2 = 0.887, RMSE = 0.655 and R2 = 0.887, RMSE = 0.656) of LA, respectively. It can be concluded that regressions using L×W and L2×W2 may better estimate the leaf area. However, leaf length and width solely didn’t display a good estimation of leaf area. Also these models were validated and showed that they could predict the leaf area of Dracocephalum moldavica quickly and precively.