INFLUENCE OF TWO PLANT MATERIALS ON OIL CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THREE GARDEN SAGE VARIETIES

According to European Pharmacopeia the garden sage (Salvia officinalis L.) drug is made up of whole or cut dried leaves and its essential oil content has to be 15 mL/kg for the whole drug and 10 mL/kg for the cut drug. Generally the oil traded does not derive from distillation of dried leaves, but of fresh leafy shoots, usually harvested at the end of summer. To assess the effects of these two plant materials on oil composition, during the years 2003/04 samples of fresh leafy shoots and dry leaves were harvested three times. Two harvests were carried out in the second half of September (vegetative phase) and another one in May (flowering phase). The samples were picked up in a field trial of three cultivars (Extrakta, Ippo and Regula) arranged according to a split-plot design with 4 replications. The oil composition was determined by GC analysis. On average of years and varieties the yield of essential oil in the September harvests was 13.2 mL/kg for dry leaves and 4.7 mL/kg for fresh leafy shoots, while that of May gave 9.0 and 1.6 mL/kg respectively. The data of oil composition were processed by ANOVA as single component ( and -thujone, 1,8-cineole and camphor) or grouped together (monoterpenes, monoterpenols and sesquiterpenes). Results of the ANOVA factorial analysis carried out on September harvests showed significant differences among years, varieties and kind of samples. Generally in all harvests the oil obtained by fresh leafy shoots was richer in monoterpenes, thujone and total thujones, while sesquiterpenes were more abundant in the harvest derived from dried leaves.