Chemical Composition of the Fixed and Essential Oils of Nigella sativa L. from Turkey

Abstract

Nigella sativa L. is an annual herbaceous plant which has medicinal and culinary uses. The seeds and extracts have antioxidant and antimicrobial effects. Besides, the seed oil is rich in unsaturated fatty acids. This research was conducted to determine the essential and fixed oil components of ten Nigella sativa populations in Eskisehir ecological conditions. Besides, yield component were also studied. Ten population were used in the research. The experimental design was randomized block design with three replications.

Statistically significant differences were found between populations in terms of seed yield and yield components. The highest seed yield was obtained from Kozluca Town, Burdur population (1885 kg/ha), the highest fixed oil yield was obtained from Kure, Sogut, Bilecik population (410.8 kg/ha).

Main essential oil components were 67.7 % thymoquinone, 8.4 % carvacrol, 4.8 % junipene, % 2.3 p-cymen, 1.9 % 4-Terpineol, 0.6 % longipinene, 0.5 % bornylacetate. The main unsaturated fatty acid was linoleic acid (39.20-43.74 %) followed by oleic acid (33.41-37.75 %).The total MUFAs, PUFAs, and SAFAs compositions were between 36.31-38.55%, 39.27-44.17% and 19.51- 22.23%, respectively. There were variations between populations in terms of seed yield and yield components, essential and fixed oil composition. This differences would be helpful for selecting genotypes in order to obtain new varieties with high seed and fixed oil yields. In addition, high amount of thymoquinone content in the essential oil was found for the Kure, Sogut, Bilecik population.