Carotenoid and Chlorophyll Pigments in Sweet Basil Grown in the Field and Greenhouse

By D. Kopsell, D. Kopsell, J. Curran‐Celentano. 2005

91 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is a popular culinary herbal crop grown for fresh or dry leaf, essential oil, and seed markets. Recently, basil was shown to rank highest among spices and herbal crops for xanthophyll carotenoids, which are associated with decreased risks of cancer and age-related eye diseases. The research goal for the current study was to characterize the concentrations of nutritionally important carotenoid pigments in popular varieties of basil. Eight cultivars of sweet basil ('Genovese', 'Italian Large Leaf', 'Nufar', 'Red Rubin', 'Osmin Purple', 'Spicy Bush', 'Cinnamon', and 'SweetThai') were grown in both field and greenhouse environments and evaluated for plant pigments using HPLC methodology. Environmental and cultivar differences were observed for all of the pigments analyzed. 'Sweet Thai' accumulated the highest concentrations of lutein, zeaxanthin, and β-carotene carotenoids in the field, while 'Osmin Purple' accumulated the highest carotenoid concentrations in the greenhouse. Comparing the two environments, cultivar levels for carotenoid and chlorophyll pigments were higher in the field environment when expressed on both a fresh and dry weight basis. Exceptions were found only for the purple leaf basils ('Osmin Purple' and 'Red Rubin'). Positive correlations existed between carotenoid and chlorophyll pigments in both environments. This study demonstrates sweet basil accumulates high levels of nutritionally important carotenoids in both field and greenhouse environments.

Subfields: Biochemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cdb216f3d1bc1b8d9b9d2dac02cc636057264c18

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

B. Murillo-Amador
E. Rueda-Puente
E. Troyo-Diéguez
J. García-Hernández
F. Ruiz-Espinoza
A. Beltrán-Morales
L. Fenech-Larios
C. Kaya

Citations in the corpus

FIELD EVALUATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHLOROPHYLL CONTENT IN BASIL LEAVES AND A PORTABLE CHLOROPHYLL METER (SPAD-502) READINGS (2010, result): “However, the values of chlorophyll content and SPAD readings in basil leaves of this study are equal to those reported in basil by Kopsell et al. (2005), Politycka and Golcz (2004) and da Silva et al. (2005).”