Influence of the drying period in the dry and rainy seasons on the essential oil of Lippia alba (Mill) N.E.Br., in the conditions of the State of Ceará

Abstract

The objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of the drying period, during the dry and rainy seasons, in the State of Ceara-Brazil. In conditions of solar dryer, on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the essential oil of Lippia alba (Mill) N.E.Br., chemotype citral/limonene. The vegetable material was obtained from plants cultivated at the Medicinal Plants garden of the “Vale do Curu” Experimental Farm of the “Universidade Federal do Ceará”, located in Pentecoste, Ceará, Brazil. The treatments consisted of seven drying periods, 0 (control), 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 16 days, in the dry and rainy season. The experiment design used the completely randomized with four replications. The essential oil was extracted by the stem distillig method and analyzed through gaseous cromatography and mass espectrophotometry (GC/ME). In the conditions of the experiment, it can be conclude that: in the dry and rainy seasons, drying of the vegetable material of L. alba, chemotype citral-limonene, can be done until the eighth day to guarantee the highest  content of essential oil rich in citral and limonene; the drying period  and haverst period influenced essential oil content of L. alba, chemotype citral-limonene; the humidity and the biomass suffered influences of the air  humidity when dried in natural dryer.