The effects of salinity on chemical composition of essential oil of Satureja rechingeri

Environmental stresses, particularly water and salt stress, are considered as one of the major obstacles in the production of agricultural crops in many parts of the world, especially in arid and semiarid regions such as Iran. Satureja is famous aromatic and medicinal genus which is very important in economical, medicinal and pharmaceutical aspects. In this study the effects of NaCl concentration on composition of essential oil of Satureja rechingeri was investigated. The salt treatments were 30, 60, 90, 120, and 150 mM. The essential oils were obtained by hydrodistillation method and were analyzed by capillary GC and GC-MS. Carvacrol as the main component of the oil does not follow the trends of increasing or decreasing regularly so that its highest and lowest content were observed in control and 30 mM respectively. Also other components including linalool, thymol, 4-terpineol does not follow the trends of increasing or decreasing regularly. The results of this study show that salt stress causes changes in composition of essential oil of Satureja rechingeri.