Growth sites and their impacts on sour orange ʽCitrus aurantium (Tournef.)ʼ essential oil

Abstract

Growth sites (GSs) in Egypt are characterized by various environmental conditions which affect essential oil (EO) and productivity of sour orange. The EO of sour orange has been used for food, perfume and drug industries. This trial serve as reference for selection of the suitable GS to isolate the sour orange EO according to the components of interest; thus, the differences of sour orange EOs and their constituents were evaluated under various GSs (middle and south). The EO of leaves, flowers and peels that were harvested from different GSs were extracted by hydro-distillation and analyzed by GC/MS. Samples collected from south site produced the highest amounts of leaf, flower and peel EO with the values of 0.8%, 0.2% and 0.5%, respectively. Linalool, nerol and limonene were the main compounds of leaf, flower and peel EOs, respectively. Samples were collected from middle site produced the maximum values of linalool (39.9%) and limonene (72.6%); but the greatest value of nerol (52.1%) was obtained from the samples were collected from south site. Oxygenated monoterpenes (OM) was the major fraction of leaf and flower EOs, while the fraction of monoterpene hydrocarbons (MH) was the main fraction of peel EO. The flower samples that were collected from south site produced the maximum amount of OM fraction (83.5%). The greatest value (81.2%) of MH fraction resulted from peel samples that were collected from middle site.