Effect of Benzyl Adenine, Indole Acetic Acid and Gibberellic Acid on Vegetative Growth, Chemical Constituents and Volatile Oil Attributes of Sweet Basil Plants

Abstract

BENZYL ADENINE, indole acetic acid and gibberellic acid at different concentrationswere sprayed to study their effects on growth, chemical components and volatile oils ofsweet basil in 2018 and 2019 seasonsPlant height, number of leaves/plant, average leaf area, and herb fresh and dry weights/plant greatly improved with the applied treatments especially with IAA treatments followedby GA 3 treatments. However, the number of lateral branches/plant and stem diameter wereincreased with BA treatments especially with 10 ppm than 5 ppm. Generally, the second cutwas superior in the studied vegetative growth parameters than the first cut.The highest values of N, P, K, Fe, and Mn were recorded with BA at 10 ppm, whereashigher Zn values were recorded with BA at 5 ppm. Active ingredients including total phenols,total flavones, total chlorophyll, and L- ascorbic acid greatly increased with IAA at 50 or100 than the other treatments or the control. However, volatile oil percentage and volatile oilcontent/plant were high in IAA at 50 or 100 ppm followed by GA3 at 200 ppm. The secondcut was superior to the first cut in promoting volatile oil percentage and volatile oil content/plant in both studied seasons. The main components in volatile oil were 1,8-cineole, linalool,á-trans-bergamotene, germacrene D and á-muurolol. The highest values of linalool, the maincomponent in the volatile oil of sweet basil (50.90%) was recorded by IAA at 100 ppm