Shading and Planting Material Type Effects on Some Physiological and Biochemical Compounds Synthesis in Desmodium adscendens Plants Leaves in the Domestication Phase, Daloa, Côte d'Ivoire

Abstract

Desmodium adscendens (Sw.) is a plant of the Fabaceae Family, a wild medicinal plant frequently found in industrial plantations, where it is exposed to pesticide residues. This makes species unsuitable for use as a raw material in pharmaceutical industry. To this end, domestication is one of best ways of cleaning up the species. During this process, the evaluation of a few physiological and biochemical compounds would be an indicator for the choice of planting material and the ecology species. Two types of plant material (seeds and stem) grown under three types of shade (accentuated, moderate, no shade) were tested. The leaves of various 90-day-old plants were used to determine physiological and biochemical parameters various. Results showed that chlorophyll a, carotenoids, polyphenols, total sugars, protein, proline and the activities of tyrosine ammonia-lyase, polyphenol oxidase and catalase were higher in leaves with moderate and no shading. However, under heavy shading, chlorophyll b content, phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL) and peroxidase enzyme activities were higher. Whatever shading type, the chl (a) content remained lower than that of chl (b). Also, total sugars, proline, ascorbate peroxidase and catalase were more abundant in the leaves of plants grown from stem. In contrast, phenolics, proteins and PPO are more abundant in leaves of seedlings.