Aroma profile of seeds of Carum carvi Linn. cultivated in higher hills of Uttarakhand Himalaya

摘要

Carum carvi Linn. (Caraway) is an established promising source of essential oils. The variation in the oil content and essential oil composition of its cultivated crop in higher hills of Uttarakhand Himalaya was evaluated. Samples were collected from Mereng (Chamoli), Parsari (Chamoli), Kapkot (Bageshwar), Ganeshpur (Chamoli) and Chakrata (Dehra Dun) for quality evaluation. Oil content of seeds varies from 3.3-4.8 per cent. Quality was determined by GC and GC-MS and the results revealed that all the farmer’s field samples contained carvone as a major components and maximum percentage was found in the sample collected from Chakrata (Dehra Dun). The second major constituent was found to be DL-limonene which varies among the samples. Other useful components were also found in the essential oil of caraway like limonene oxide, trans-dihydro-carvone and β-mycene. It is implicated that seeds of caraway can be taken from such areas for commercial utilization of essential oil.