Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 department of biology,, faculty of sciences. The University of Zanjan
2 Research Institue of Modern Bioligical Techniques, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran
3 Department of Biological, Faculty of Science, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran
Abstract
Artichoke (Cynara scolymus L.), is a perennial herbaceous plant belonging to the Asteraceae family, which has both medicinal and nutritional properties. It seems that harvesting time has an important effect on the quantity and quality of plant products especially on secondary metabolites. In order to analysis of plant or field age on some physiological, biochemical and secondary metabolites characteristics of artichoke, a research project was carried out in a completely randomized design at the research field of medicinal plants at the University of Zanjan. One-year old and two-year old artichoke farms were selected as experimental treatments, and then three plots were randomly selected from each farm in which the plant specimens were taken and the desired traits were measured. According to the results: some traits such as: leaf dry weight, leaf length and width, amount of chlorophylls and carotenoids, root soluble proteins and carbohydrates increased at second year old plants. However; shoot soluble proteins and carbohydrate and also the total number of extracted secondary metabolites were decreased by increasing of plant age. D-methyl Buta Dienil (26.18 %), Pentacosadiynoic acid (21.24%), Inositol (10.97%) and Tetramethyl-octahydronaphthalen (9.61%) were the major compounds of one-year old artichoke plants and scyllo inositol (59.01%), methyl-hexadecatetra enoate (20.46%), isopropenyl-methanol (5.2%) and glucopyranose (4.71%) were the major components two-year old artichoke plant leaf extract. It can be concluded that plant age has noticeable effects on growth and biochemical and specially on secondary metabolites properties of artichoke.
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