Radiolytically depolymerized sodium alginate improves physiological activities, yield attributes and composition of essential oil of Eucalyptus citriodora Hook

Published Date
4 November 2014, Vol.112:134–144, doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2014.05.070

Author 

Akbar Ali ^a,,

M. Masroor A. Khan ^a

Moin Uddin ^a

M. Naeem ^a

Mohd Idrees ^a

Nadeem Hashmi ^a

Tariq Ahmad Dar ^a

Lalit Varshney ^b

aPlant Physiology Section, Department of Botany, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, 202 002, UP, India

bHead, RTDD, Isotope Group, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, 400085, India

Received 10 February 2014. Revised 12 May 2014. Accepted 23 May 2014. Available online 1 June 2014. 

Highlights

• •
  Irradiated sodium alginate could elicit plant growth promoting activities in plants.
• •
  Foliar spray of ISA improved growth, yield and quality attributes of Eucalyptus.
• •
  ISA spray at 120 mg L⁻¹ gave the highest values for most of the attributes studied.
• •
  Treatment 6 enhanced the content and yield (33.3 and 86.7%), as compared to the control.

Abstract

Eucalyptus citriodora Hook. is highly valued for its citronellal-rich essential oil (EO) extracted from its leaves. Hence, escalated EO production of eucalyptus is the need of hour. Marine polysaccharides (sodium alginate) are processed through gamma radiation of particular intensity, to obtain the irradiated sodium alginate (ISA). A pot experiment was conducted to study the effect of foliar application of ISA on growth, biochemical, physiological, EO yield and composition of E. citriodora. The treatments were applied as: foliar spray of deionized water only (control), seed soaked with ISA (90 mg L⁻¹) and foliar spray of ISA with 30, 60, 120 and 240 mg L⁻¹. The treatment 6 (spray of ISA at 120 mg L⁻¹) showed the highest value for most of the parameters studied. It also enhanced the EO content (33.3%), EO yield (86.7%), citronellal content (63.4%) and citronellal yield (205.5%) as compared to the control.

Keywords

Eucalyptus citriodora

Irradiated sodium alginate

Essential oil

Citronellal

Plant promoter

---

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

.

 Table 1

Table 1.

 Table 2

Table 2.

Fig. 4.

 Table 3

Table 3.

Fig. 5.

• ⁎ 
  Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9719684855.
  
  

For further details log on website :
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0144861714005475