Effect of nitrogen on growth, biomass and oil composition of clary sage (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Salvia sclarea</i> Linn.) under mid hills of north western Himalayas

Abstract

A pot experiment was conducted during 2008-2009 at CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, India to study the effect of nitrogen <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight:bold">on growth, biomass and oil composition of clary sage (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Salvia sclarea</i> Linn.). In this study, growth parameters, viz. plant height, number of leaves, canopy spread and yield attributing characters like inflorescence length, plant biomass as well as oil composition were investigated. Besides this, quality evaluation was also done. Five doses of N application, <span style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">viz. control, No nitrogen (T₁), 1.5 g N/plant (T₂), 3.0 g N/plant (T₃), 4.5 g N/plant (T₄) and 6.0 g N/plant (T₅) were tested. Eighteen constituents were found in T₁, 17 in T₂, 21 in T₃, 16 in T₄ and 18 in T₅, which are major in percentage and representing 86.24, 82.57, 93.23, 81.96 and 83.51% of the oil composition, respectively. Clary sage responded to N application up to 3.0 g N/plant and recorded significantly higher leaf, flower and total biomass/plant than other treatments. Likewise high content of linalyl acetate (32.11%) and linalool (19.10%) was recorded in this treatment.

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