Population, clonal and nitrogen effect on secondary compounds in Salvia fruticosa Mill.
1998
Abbes, J.
Using plant material collected from the field and also cultivation under glass, genetic and environmentally induced variation in a number of parameters observed in Salvia fruticosa has been examined. It was shown that three populations collected from different parts of Crete (Vrisses, Kavoussi and Kapsa) and previously shown to exhibit different essential oil yields and profiles (chemotypes) differed also in other characters. They had different morphology and habit, phenolic yield and composition and different activities of the inducible nitrate reducing enzyme nitrate reductase. The essential oil characteristics found in the field were maintained under glass. The effect of nitrogen on growth and essential oil composition was further studied in three selected clones from the Vrisses polluation of Salvia. Nitrogen supply affected nitrate reductase activity (measured in situ) and growth rates, as expected. There was no effect of nitrogen on phenolic content (expressed per gram fresh weight) nor on essential oil yield but there were small effects on the essential oil composition, some consistently observed between clones. Overall although nitrogen has significant effects on growth rates and therefore on total biomass the effects on secondary metabolites were very small in comparison with the differences between the populations, which are almost certainly genetic in basis.
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