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Journal of Essential Oil Bearing Plants

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Studies on the Morphological Characters and Yields

of Oil and Citral of Certain Lemongrass [Cymbopogon
Flexuosus (Steud) Wats] Accessions Grown Under Agro-
Climatic Conditions of Northeast India
a a
Aniruddha Sarma & Tarun Ch. Sarma
a
Plant Sciences and Ecology Division, Regional Research Laboratory , Jorhat , 785006 ,
Assam , India
Published online: 12 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Aniruddha Sarma & Tarun Ch. Sarma (2005) Studies on the Morphological Characters and Yields of Oil
and Citral of Certain Lemongrass [Cymbopogon Flexuosus (Steud) Wats] Accessions Grown Under Agro-Climatic Conditions of
Northeast India, Journal of Essential Oil Bearing Plants, 8:3, 250-257, DOI: 10.1080/0972060X.2005.10643454

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0972060X.2005.10643454

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 Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257 250

ISSN 0972-060X

Studies on the Morphological Characters and Yields of Oil and Citral of

Certain Lemongrass [Cymbopogon Flexuosus (Steud) Wats] Accessions
Grown Under Agro-Climatic Conditions of Northeast India.
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Aniruddha Sarma, Tarun Ch. Sarma*

Plant Sciences and Ecology Division, Regional Research Laboratory,
Jorhat-785006. Assam, India.

Abstract: A field experiment was conducted during 1999-2003 to ascertain the performance
of five lemongrass accessions, collected from naturally growing habitat of Northeast India. Morpho-
logical characters of the accessions were studied and yields of oil and citral were recorded. The gas
chromatographic analysis of the oil recorded eight major compounds constituting 90% of the oil. Oil
(0.55 –1.03%) and citral (78.0-95.0%) was found to be the maximum in RLJ-TC-10 through out the
year. Citral content of RLJ-TC-1 and RLJ-TC-9 was found to be at per with that of RLJ-TC-10,
however oil content was found to be low. Citral content was comparatively low in RLJ-TC-4 (78.1%)
amongst the accessions. Results were compared with the standard cultivar OD-19 that was grown
parallel with the other accessions. Seasonal variation was found to be very effective on the yield of oil
and its constituents. Citral percentage was maximum in winter season (November-December) and
minimum during the rainy season (July-August). Oil was found to be the highest (1.03%) during pre
monsoon (March-June) and onset of monsoon. Considering the yield of oil and citral, accession RLJ-
TC-10 was found to be the superior amongst the five accessions even better than OD-19 and can be
considered for commercial exploitation particularly under the agro-climatic conditions of North Eastern
India.

Introduction: The genus cymbopogon (family Poaceae) is commercially very impor-

tant. It has about 140 species out of which only a few species are cultivated for production
of essential oils (Bor, 1953). This genus is distributed in many tropical and subtropical parts
of the Asia, Africa and America (Pilly, 1961). This genus is Indian origin and the lemon-
grass is commonly known as East Indian Lemongrass in trade (Nair, 1982). Twenty-seven
species of Cymbopogon occurred in different part of India (Kapoor et al, 1991). Rout et al
(2000) reported that three species of lemongrass, viz. East Indian Lemongrass (Cymbopogon
flexuosus), West Indian Lemongrass (C. citratus) and North Indian Lemongrass (C. pendulus)
were cultivated. For commercial cultivation of lemongrass, selection procedure is based on

*Corresponding author: (Tarun Ch. Sarma)

E-mail: <tcsarma@india.com & drtcsarma@yahoo.com>
 Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257 251

certain economic parameters like plant height, leaf area, tiller numbers, herb yield and
citral content (Nair, 1982). The oil content is also associate with leaf to stem ratio (Rout et
al 2000). The oils of lemongrass are reported to have varied chemical compositions
(Rajendrudu, 1983). The volatile essential oil obtain from lemongrass has variety of uses in
different industries like perfumery, cosmetics and pharmaceutical and also in flavouring
curries, wines, beverages and mosquito repellent cream (Protzen, 1995 and Rao and Sobti,
1987). In recent year, the annual production of the lemongrass oil in India has been declined
considerably as that of the production of 5th – 6th decade of the 20th century (Protzen, 1995).
One of the reasons behind this situation is mainly due to better substitute from fruit oil of
Litsea cubeba Pers (Nath et al 1994). However, Pal et al (2001) reported that Cymbopogon
grows in wild in different part of India from sea level to an altitude of 4500m.
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Lemongrass oil is mainly used for isolation of citral, an important monoterpene alde-
hyde, large quantities of which are being utilized for production of a numbers of chemicals
of industrial importance (Nair, 1982). Citral is a starting material for a and b ionones. a
ionone is used as flavours, cosmetic and perfume, while b ionone is used for synthesis of
vitamin ‘A’ (Thappa et al 1981). On account of increasing demand of the lemongrass oil in
industry the crop has been gained popularity. R&D activities for development of superior
variety of lemongrass have been subject of much study in India over last couple of years.
Therefore, a study was made to evaluate the oil and citral content of five lemongrass acces-
sions and compared the data with the standard cultivar OD-19.

Materials and methods: An experiment was conducted at the experimental farm of

Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat, Assam during 1999-2003 on five accessions of
Cymbopogon flexuosus, viz. RLJ-TC-1, RLJ-TC-4, RLJ-TC-5, RLJ-TC-9 and RLJ-TC-10
These were collected from different areas of Northeast India and cultivated under identical
agro-climatic conditions providing equal dose of manure and other necessary intercultural
practices. A standard cultivar OD-19 was cultivated along with the accessions for compari-
son. Experiment was laid out in a randomized block design having three replications. Plants
were planted at a spacing of 60x70 cm. The plot size was 7x5 m having 1.5 m gap between
the plots. Plantation was done during April’1999 and continued up to 2003. Leaves were
harvested five times per year during the cultivation period. Freshly harvested leaves were
subjected to hydro distillation using Clevenger apparatus for three hours. Oils were mea-
sured (w/v) and dried using anhydrous sodium sulphate and kept in refrigeration for gas
chromatography.
During the flowering season (November- December) representative of the plant
samples of each accession were uprooted and their morphological characters like plant
height, numbers of suppressed internodes, leaf area, colour of the plant parts, length of
auricle, ligulae and awn were recorded and presented in table I A. Microscopic slides were
prepared for study of leaf epidermal characters and data are presented in table I B. The
method opted for epidermal peeling was as described by Chouhan et al (1988). In case of
oil yield variation study, leaf samples of 500g from each accession were taken in every
month and average data of 10 samples were presented in table 2.
Composition of essential oil was determined by gas chromatographic method of analy-
 Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257 252

sis. The volatile constituents of the oil were separated in gas column of 2mm i.d. (internal
diameter) X 2m length, filled with 15% SE52 on gas chrom Q 80/100 mesh. The column
temperature was programmed from 1000-2100 C at the rate of 30C/minute after initial load-
ing time for 10 minutes. A Varian model 3700 gas chromatography with Flame Ionization
Detector (FID) was used during the course of analysis. The major identified compounds
and their percentage at different time period were presented in table- 3.

Results and discussion: The oil used for the experiments was found to be a light
yellow mobile liquid to a bright yellow, possessing a strong lemon like odour. Morphologi-
cally the accessions were found to be different in their height (in vegetative and flowering
stage), colour of the plant parts, internodes numbers (in suppressed uniform portion), leaf
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area, tiller number/bush, length of auricle, ligulae and awn. All the accessions were straight
in habit, however, RLJ-TC-4 and RLJ-TC-5 showed semi pendant leaves. The highest and
the lowest tiller number/bush were recorded in RLJ-TC-10 and OD-19 respectively. Leaf
area was found to be higher in RLJ-TC-9 and least in RLJ-TC-4. Ligulae and auricle were
found to be comparatively longer in RLJ-TC-1 and shorter in OD-19 (table I a). The leaf
epidermal character of the accessions showed significant difference in characters like num-
ber of cells, stomata, microhair/mm2 and stomatal index in both adaxial and abaxial sur-
face. The accession RLJ-TC-5 showed higher number of epidermal cell in adaxial surface
and least in RLJ-TC-9. OD-19 showed highest number of cell in abaxial surface and least in
RLJ-TC-9. Number of stomata/mm2 was found to be higher in abaxial surface of OD-19
and least in RLJ-TC-1. In adaxial surface, higher number of stomata/mm2 was observed in
RLJ-TC-10 and least in RLJ-TC-1 (table I b).
The monthly variation of oil was recorded and compared with OD-19. The over all
oil content patterns showed a marked trend. During the pre and onset of monsoon from
March-July the oil content was comparatively higher. The post monsoon and winter period
can be termed as low oil content period. The yearly average yield of oil in RLJ-TC-10 was
found to be the highest (0.75%), whereas RLJ-TC-5 and RLJ-TC-9 showed the lowest
(0.56%). The oil yield in case of OD-19 was recorded as 0.65%. Similar observation was
also reported on SD-68 lemongrass variety by Handique et al (1984).
The gas chromatographic analyses of the volatile oils of the lemongrass accessions
were recorded eight major compounds, constituting more than 90%. Citral (neral+geranial)
was the major constituent round the year. The major aroma compounds of oil identified for
each accession showed variation. The RLJ-TC-10 showed higher percentage of citral (87.1%)
and followed by RLJ-TC-1 and RLJ-TC-9 containing 87.0% citral. RLJ-TC-4 showed least
citral (78.1%). Similar studies have been carried out on lemongrass by various worker like
Cherian et al (1993), Kulkarni et al (1997), Sarma et al (1999), Nath et al (1994) and Rout
et al (2000) and reported the presence of citral, geraniol, elemicin, methyl euginol, geranyl
acetate etc. Similar variations due to season were also reported by Sarma et al (2003) in
certain lemongrass accessions.
Considering the yield of oil and citral, accession RLJ-TC-10 was found to be supe-
rior amongst the five accessions even better than OD-19 and can be considered for commer-
cial exploitation.
 Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257 253

References:
1. Bor, N.L. (1953). Bombay Natural History. Soc. 51, 890-916.
2. Cherian Sosamma, Gim Jose Chittattu and Viswanathan, T.V. (1993). Chemi-
cal composition of lemongrass variety. Indian Perfumer 37(1): 77-80.
3. Chouhan, L; Bisen, S.S. and Agrawal, S.P. (1988). Leaf epidermis of Indian bam-
boos. Part I Dendrocalamus Nees. Indian Forester, 114: 684-692.
4. Handique, A.K; Gupta, R.K. and Bordoloi, D.N. (1984). Variation in oil content
in lemongrass as influences by seasonal change and its genetic aspect. Indian Perfmer,
28 (1): 54-63.
5. Kapoor, S.K. and Shahi, A.K. (1991). Grass of Northeast India (Merryland
Prakashan, Bikaner, Rajhsthan, India).
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6. Kulkarni, R.N., Mallavarapu, G.R., Bhaskaran, K., Ramesh, S. and Kumar, S.

(1997). Essential oil composition of a citronella like variety of lemongrass. Journal
of Essential Oil Research 9(4): 393-395.
7. Nath, S.C., Saha, B.N., Bordaloi, D.N. and Mathur, R.K. (1994). The chemical
composition of the essential oil of Cymbopogon flexuosus (Steud) Wats growing in
Northeast India. J. of Essent. Oil Res. 6(1): 85-87.
8. Nair, E.V.G. (1982). Promotional aspect of lemongrass, cultivation and utilization of
aromatic plants. CUMAP. Ed. C.K.Atal and B.M.Kapoor, Published by RRL Jammu-
Tawi India.
9. Pal, S., Rao, B.L., Bhan, M.K., Balyan, S.S., Dutta, P., Kaul, B.L., Agrawal,
S.G., Thappa, R.K. and Dhar, P.L. (2001). Production potential of lemongrass
cultivar in North India. FAFAI, 3 (2): 41-45.
10. Pillay, K.P. (1961). Lemongrass in India. Farm bulletin no. 61. Govt. of India, Minis-
try of Food and Agriculture, New Delhi.
11. Protzen, K. (1995). Global viewpoint of the trades of essential oil. Indian Perfumer
39(4): 161-171.
12. Rajendrudu, G. and Das, V.S.K. (1983). Proc. Indian Acad. Sci. (Pl. Sci.), 92: 33-
34.
13. Rao, P.L. and Sobti, S.N. (1987). Breeding of high yielding lemongrass for flavour
industry. Indian Perfumer, 31 (1); 32-34.
14. Rout, P.K., Sahoo, S., Ratra, P. and Rao, Y.R. (2000). Growth and quality of
lemongrass genotype under Bhubaneswar condition. FAFAI, 2(4): 45-47.
15. Sarma, K.K., Nath, S.C. and Piet A. Leclercq (1999). The essential oil of a
variant of Cymbopogon flexuosus (Nees ex Steud) Wats from Northeast India. J.of
Essen. Oil Res. 11(3): 381-385.
16. Sarma, A., Sarma, T.C., Handique, A.K. and Sarma Barua, A.K. (2003). Varia-
tion in major chemical constituents in oil of lemongrass [Cymbopogon flexuosus
(Steud) Wats] accessions in different seasons under Brahmaputra valley agro-climatic
conditions. FAFAI, 5 (2): 43-49.
17. Thappa, R.K., Agrawal, S.G., Dhar, K.C. and Atal, C.K. (1981). Citral contain-
ing Cymbopogon species. Indian Perfumer, 25(1): 15-18.
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Table I a: Salient morphological characters of the accessions

Characters Accessions CD

RLJ-TC-1 RLJ-TC-4 RLJ-TC-5 RLJ-TC-9 RLJ-TC-10 OD-19 (p=0.05)

Habit Erect, Straight Semi pendent Semi pendent Erect, Straight Erect, Straight Erect, Straight

Height(cm)Vegetative 159.3 130.2 140.1 178.9 100.3 134.8 6.99

Matured 285.8 235.7 280.9 289.0 198.4 240.6 11.84

Colour: Culm Light brown Light yellow Reddish yellow Reddish brown Pale yellow Dark brown
Leaf sheath Dark brown Light purple Light brown Light brown Dark brown Reddish brown

Suppressed Internodes:
Number 10-12 9-11 11-13 16-18 12-14 15-18
Relative length (%) 0.18 0.20 0.21 0.24 0.19 0.20

Length (cm)
Ligulae 0.35 0.29 0.33 0.30 0.30 0.18 0.04
Auricle 0.40 0.33 0.32 0.28 0.15 - 0.20
Awn 0.60 0.75 0.65 0.70 0.65 0.65 #
Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257

Leaf area (cm2) av. 852.7 703.01 727.14 1105.7 771.38 767.0 16.01
of 6 leaves

Tiller number/bush 59.1 52.8 55.6 62.2 63.1 49.0 7.54

- = Having no auricle
# = Statistically no significant difference between the accessions.
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Table I b: Leaf epidermal characters of the accessions

Characters RLJ-TC-1 RLJ-TC-4 RLJ-TC-5 RLJ-TC-9 RLJ-TC-10 OD-19

AD AB AD AB AD AB AD AB AD AB AD AB

Number of
Cell/mm2 292.20 1120.12 260.65 1038.96 389.61 1201.29 253.94 756.43 326.11 1029.13 350.17 39.29
Number of
Microhair/mm2 21.38 136.1 8.01 172.33 21.38 162.33 10.69 82.86 26.73 173.75 10.69 275.97
Number of
Stomata/mm2 16.03 649.35 40.09 681.81 18.71 735.45 34.75 676.28 48.11 825.98 40.09 1071.92
Number of
Intercostals region 8 11 3 10 4 7 5 12 3 7 4 9
Stomatal Index 5.2 36.69 13.33 39363 4.58 37.97 12.03 47.20 12.85 44.52 10.27 39.29
Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257
255
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Table II Monthly variation in oil content of the accessions.

Month Oil, %
RLJ-TC-1 RLJ-TC-4 RLJ-TC-5 RLJ-TC-9 RLJ-TC-10 OD-19

Jan 0.62 0.65 0.45 0.47 0.80 0.67

Feb 0.60 0.70 0.50 0.52 0.82 0.65
Mar 0.50 0.75 0.52 0.53 1.0 0.63
Apr 0.55 0.80 0.55 0.61 1.03 0.63
May 0.66 0.86 0.60 0.65 0.80 0.70
Jun 0.67 0.80 0.65 0.68 0.77 0.73
Jul 0.72 0.72 0.70 0.65 0.73 0.73
Aug 0.62 0.67 0.62 0.60 0.67 0.70
Sep 0.60 0.63 0.57 0.54 0.63 0.65
Oct 0.58 0.60 0.53 0.51 0.58 0.63
Nov 0.55 0.57 0.55 0.51 0.55 0.60
Dec 0.58 0.60 0.53 0.50 0.65 0.65
Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257

Average 0.64 0.70 0.56 0.56 0.75 0.65

CD (P=0.05) For accessions =0.090

For months = 0.064
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Table III Major aroma constituents of oil of lemongrass accessions in different months.

Accessions Seasons Major chemical constituent, %

Dipentene Linalool Citronellol Citral-b Geraniol Citral-a Nerol Neryl Total Avg. Total
(Neral) (Geranial) acetate citral citral Identified
Compound

OD-19 S1 2.2 0.7 0.3 35.7 2.4 51.0 - 2.5 86.7 93.8
S2 1.2 0.5 0.4 25.2 0.2 39.1 6.8 14.5 64.3 79.7 87.9
S3 1.1 0.6 0.5 38.0 - 50.2 0.4 0.8 88.2 91.6

RLJ-TC-1 S1 0.4 0.7 0.4 32.3 0.6 53.5 0.8 3.9 85.8 97.6
S2 0.2 0.3 0.2 29.5 - 55.7 1.8 5.8 85.2 87.0 92.5
S3 0.5 0.5 0.4 37.5 - 52.5 0.3 0.3 90.0 92.0

RLJ-TC-4 S1 0.2 0.8 0.8 31.6 0.2 52.1 0.8 4.7 83.7 91.2
S2 - 0.4 - 23.0 - 41.4 6.3 15.7 64.4 78.1 86.8
S3 0.7 0.7 0.2 34.4 - 51.8 1.3 2.6 86.2 92.0

RLJ-TC-5 S1 0.1 0.6 0.2 36.5 0.5 56.3 - 1.3 92.8 95.5
S2 0.2 0.7 0.6 27.9 - 38.9 6.8 13.2 66.8 81.0 88.3
S3 0.5 0.8 0.3 35.6 - 47.8 2.5 4.3 83.4 91.8
Tarun Ch. Sarma et al. / Jeobp 8 (3) 2005 pp 250-257

RLJ-TC-9 S1 0.2 0.9 0.6 31.7 0.4 59.6 0.4 1.2 91.3 95.0
S2 0.1 0.5 0.1 32.3 - 50.4 3.0 7.9 82.7 87.0 94.3
S3 1.0 0.9 0.2 33.4 - 52.6 0.9 2.0 87.0 91.0

RLJ-TC-10 S1 0.7 0.8 0.2 36.1 - 52.2 1.8 3.4 88.3 95.2
S2 - 0.7 0.2 28.0 - 50.0 4.8 10.0 78.0 87.1 93.7
S3 0.4 0.5 0.1 34.6 0.2 60.0 0.1 0.8 95.0 97.1

-= Trace amount., S1 = April – May; S2 = July- August; S3 = November – December.

257