THE EFFECT OF GROWTH STAGE ON ESSENTIAL OIL COMPOSITION OF ‘HAMBURG’ PARSLEY

The chemical composition of essential oils from two ‘Hamburg’ parsley cultivars, harvested at two growth stages, has been studied.
The plants were collected when the root diameter was 10 (minimum for bunching parsley) and 20 mm (minimum for marketable parsley root). The essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation, during 3 hours.
The analysis of parsley oils was performed by GC/MS and the identify cation of essential oil components was made by comparison of their mass spectra with literature records and retention indices.
Fourty-two constituents were identified in leaves with -pinen (25,5%), p-cymenene (17,7%), ß-myrcene (16,9%), ß-phellandrene (15,2%) and ß-pinen (9,6%) as the major components.
Apiol (40,4%), ß-pinen (26,9%) and ß-phellandrene (10,3%) were the main constituents in the oil obtained from roots.
The composition of root and leaf oils, collected from plants at 10 mm root diameter, were qualitatively similar to those obtained when the root diameter was 20 mm.

I International Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Conference on Culinary Herbs

R. Gruszecki

Petroselinum crispum var. tuberosum, parsley root, parsley leaf, apiol, α-pinen, ß-pinen

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2009.826.55