Vol. 12, Issue 4 (2023)

Author(s):
MH Khan, NA Dar, BA Alie, GH Mir, SA Dar, AA Lone, Uzma Fayaz, MT Ali, S Gulzar, A Khan and AH Bhat

Abstract:
Bunium persicum (Boiss) is economically an important medicinal crop growing wild in the dry temperature regions in Iran. Several isolated molecules of this species can be used as antifungals as well as in pharmaceutical industry. This investigation was performed to evaluate the degree of variability of essential oil constituents of Bunium persicum accessions originated from three districts Kishtwar, Bandipora, Pulwama. Among the studied populations the main compounds of essential oil in B. persicum were observed to be cumin aldehyde (40-41%) and γ-Terpinene (26–28%). The Pearson correlation coefficient between the essential oil contents of different studied samples indicated that p-Cymene had a highly significant positive correlation with Cumic aldehyde. The accessions were classified into three main categories according to essential oil composition. The populations showed little variation in antioxidant property ranging from 79.14% (Pulwama population) to 87.70% (Bandipora population) while the Kishtwar population exhibited 81.99% activity with overall average of 82.94%. The findings of this research can be used for sketching efficient breeding programs for this species.