Evaluation of Metabolomic Profile and Growth of Moringa oleifera L. Cultivated with Vermicompost under Different Soil Types

Luis Alberto Manzano-Gómez,Clara Ivette Rincón-Molina,Víctor Manuel Ruíz-Valdiviezo,Jorge Martín Guzmán-Albores,José Humberto Castañón-González,Francisco Alexander Rincón-Molina,Reiner Rincón-Rosales,Nancy Ruiz-Lau,Federico Antonio Gutiérrez-Miceli,Robert Winkler

doi:10.3390/agronomy11102061

Abstract

Moringa oleifera is a highly versatile plant with potential use in the agro-food and biochemical industry. The goals of this study were to evaluate the effect of chemical fertilization and vermicompost on plant growth, and to analyze the metabolomic profile of M. oleifera crops cultivated over agricultural and native soils. The extracts were obtained from 90-day-old leaves via extraction with a hydroalcoholic mixture. Multivariate data analyses, such as principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), were used to differentiate the distribution of leaf metabolites according to the soils or types of fertilizers used for the cultivation of Moringa oleifera. The results indicated that there was no significant effect on parameters such as plant height, root length and dry weight of leaves (p < 0.05). UPLC-ESI-MS/MS analysis of leaf extracts revealed a wide range of flavonoids, alkaloids and organic acids. The results of PCA and PLS-DA confirmed that the type of fertilizer had an effect on the metabolomic profile of M. oleifera leaves. The application of vermicompost induced changes in the metabolomic profile, but not in the morphometric variables of Moringa oleifera. These results are important for metabolite production via organic cultures and over different soil types in the industrialization of Moringa.

Highlights

Samples of native and agricultural soil and vermicompost were collected during the month of November 2014 from three ranches located in the state of Chiapas, Mexico
Our results show that the application of vermicompost in Moringa crops on agricultural soils induces a higher level of various alkaloids
There are few studies analyzing the relationship between metabolomic profiling of Moringa oleifera leaves and their fertilization with organic fertilizers using different types of soil

Summary

Introduction

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), one of the main challenges to be met in the future is the eradication of hunger worldwide [1]. For this reason, agriculture plays a very important role in combatting this problem. The use of organic inputs, such as vermicompost, can provide benefits for both plants and soil in order to improve soil fertility [4,5]. It has been found that organic supplies provide growth-promoting hormones (auxins, gibberellins and cytokinins), which improve crop yield. The high content of organic acids in vermicompost, such as humic and fulvic acids, has proven to be effective in increasing yields in many crops, e.g., corn and oats, tobacco roots, soybeans, peanuts, among others [6,7,8]

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