Chamomile essential oil quality after postharvest separation treatments

Ecological conditions of the growing areas, growing practices as well as harvest and postharvest processing influence the yield and quality of chamomile. The aim of this research was to determine the influence of chamomile separation methods, as postharvest treatments, on the essential oil quality and content, with a view to improve current primary processing of this valuable medicinal plant. In order to explain the structure of laboratory data that would give deeper assessment of similarities among various samples of chamomile essential oil, PCA was employed. Tested results showed that separation of chamomile plant material, as postharvest and pre-drying treatment, had significant influence on the number of identified compounds in the chamomile essential oil. The highest content of individual essential oil compounds had chamomile flowers with short stems, especially a-bisabolol, chamazulene, Z-spiroether and E-b-famesene. In the essential oil obtained from chamomile flowers with long stems, content of a-bisabolol and chamazulene were significantly lower, while E-b-famesene and Z-spiroether contents were significantly higher. Furthermore, in the essential oil obtained from chamomile plant material without separation, the lowest content of abisabolol and Z-spiroether, and the highest content of E-b-farnesene were recorded. The correlation analysis was performed to investigate the likeness in the amounts of the active compounds of essential oil from differently processed chamomile samples. All these results indicate the importance of precise and controlled postharvest treatments, since it clearly affects the essential oil quality and content in the primary processing of this valuable medicinal plant.