Effect of plant nutrients in soil, rates of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium on biomass yield, chemical composition and alkaloid yield of madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don)
1994
Somporn Konyong
Madagascar periwinkle is an important medical plant because it has 150 alkaloids especially two important and expensive ones, vinblastine and vincristine, the effective alkaloid for leukemia therapy. Production of the plant should be alternative for farmers in sandy to loamy soil of surrounding Eastern Seaboard. Understanding on plant nutrients balance and alkaloid production of the plant, however, have never been made. Greenhouse experiments on Mabbon soil series were, therefore, carried out to search for limiting plant nutrients controlling growth and mineral nutrition of Madagascar periwinkle using Omission Trial Technique with a short, reddish eye pink color flower periwinkle (experiment 1) and a tall pink color flower periwinkle (experiment 2) and three more separated greenhouse experiments were established to study the effects of the rates of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in addition to fix dose of other nutrients on biomass yield, mineral mutrition and alkaloid yield of the tall variety (experiment 3-5). These are summarized results, nitrogen phosphorus and sulfur were very strong, strong and moderate deficiences respectively, deficiencies of N and P reduced yield of the crude alkaloids in top and root, omitting iron and zinc also tended to reduce yield and content of the crude alkaloids in root, N fertilization at 600 mg N/kg soil gave the highest yield of crude alkaloids in the whole plant, P fertilization at 25 mg P/kg soil gave the highest yield of crude alkaloids in the whole plant and K fertilization at 100 mg K/kg soil gave the highest yield of crude alkaloids in the whole plant.
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