Cultivation, Collection

processing and storage of crude

drugs
 Introduction
• Cultivation of medicinal plants requires intensive care
and managements.
• The quality and growth of medicinal plants can be
affected by other plants, other living organisms and
by human activities.
• Medicinal plant materials derived from the same
species can show significant differences in quality
when cultivated at different sites, owing to the
influence of soil, climate and other factor.
 Crude drugs cultivated or uncultured plants
 Some cases: pharmacopoeias specify cultivated
spp. Such as Fennel, ginger, cinnamon & opium
 Opium: only official growers may legally produce
herbs.
 Other herbs: senna, tragacanth etc, may be
collected from wild or cultivated species
 Advantages of cultivation:-
• It ensures quality and purity of medicinal plants.
• Collection of crude drugs from cultivated plants gives
a better yield and therapeutic quality.
• Cultivation permits application of modern
technological aspects such as mutation, polyploidy
and hybridization.
• The cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants also
leads to industrialization to a greater extent.
• Cultivation ensures regular supply of a crude drug.
 DISADVANTAGES OF WILD PLANT
COLLECTION
• Sparse distribution e.g. Sceletium tortuosum
• Potentially difficult to transport herb to area of processing.
• Difficult access (e.g. Forests, Mountains etc)
• Collector ignorance admixture of other plants, collection of
undesired plant parts or stage of development or during an
incorrect season loss of medicinal activity.
• The losses occur due to natural conditions like storms,
earthquakes, flood, droughts, snowfall, tsunami etc.
• Cost of crude drugs is more compared to that of drugs
collected from wild plants.
• Land, labour and money are required.
 Collecting of medicinal plants
A. Suitable time for collection

• The amount of a constituent is usually not constant throughout

the life of a plant.

• The stage at which a plant is collected or harvested is,

therefore, very important for maximizing the yield of the
desired constituent.

• The differences are sometimes not only quantitative but also

qualitative.
 Methods Of Cultivation
• Medicinal plants can be propagated by two
usual methods as applicable to non-medicinal
plants or crops.
• These methods are referred as
– Sexual method
– Asexual method.
• Each of these methods has certain advantages,
and also, disadvantages.
 1. Sexual method
(Seed Propagation)
• In case of sexual method, the plants are raised from
seeds and such plants are known as seedlings. The
sexual method of propagation has following
advantages.
Advantages:
• Seedlings are long-lived (in case of perennial drugs)
and bear more heavily (in case of fruits). Plants are
more sturdy.
• Seedlings are comparatively cheaper and easy to
raise.
• In case of plants where other method cannot be
utilized, propagation from seeds is only
method of choice.
 Disadvantages
• Generally, seedling-trees are not uniform in
their growth and yielding capacity, as
compared to grafted trees.
• They require more time to bear, as compared
to grafted plants.
• The cost of harvesting, spraying of
pesticides, etc. is more as compared to
grafted trees.
• For propagation purpose, the seeds must be of
good quality.
• The seeds are preconditioned with the help of
scarcification to make them permeable to water
and gases.
• Before germination, sometimes a chemical
treatment is given with stimulants like
gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene, thiourea,
potassium nitrate or sodium hypochlorite.
• To enhance germination, many times, special
treatments to seeds are given, such as soaking
the seeds in water for a day. E.g. castor-seeds
and other slow-germinating seeds.
 Asexual method
• In case of asexual method or vegetative
propagation, the vegetative part of a plant, such as
stem or root, is placed in such an environment that
it develops in to a new plant.
Advantages:
• A plant starts bearing earlier as compared to
seedling trees.
• There is no variation between the plant grown and
plant from which it is grown.
• Inferior or unsuitable varieties can be overlooked.
• Seedless varieties of fruits can only be propagated
vegetatively e.g. grapes and lemon.
• Budding or grafting encourages disease-resistant
varieties of plants.
Disadvantages:
• In comparison to seedling trees, these are not
vigorous in growth and are not long lived.
• No new varieties can be evolved by this method.
 Asexual method
• (a) Vegetative propagation:

– Bulbs: squill, garlic

– Corms: colchicum, saffron
– Tubers: jalap, aconite, potato
– Rhizome: ginger, turmeric
– Runner: peppermint
– Suckers: mint, pineapple, banana
– Stolons: liquiroce
(b) Aseptic methods of micro propagation
– In micropropogation, the plants are developed
in artificial media under aseptic conditions.
– They provided with nutritional, hormonal
requirement.
– A fine piece of plant like
• Single cell
• Callus
• Seeds
• Embryo
• Root tip
• Shoot tip
• Pollen grain
 Factors affecting cultivation and
collection.
• Altitude, temperature and humidity
• Rain fall or irrigation
• Soil and soil fertility
• Fertilizers
• Day-length and radiation characteristics
• Time of harvest
• Pests and pest control
 Altitude
• Altitude is a very important factor in cultivation
of medicinal plants.
• The coconut plant needs a maritime climate and
the sugar cane is a lowland plant. Conversely,
tea, cocoa, coffee, medicinal rhubarb, tragacanth
and cinchona require elevation.
• In the case of Cinchona succirubra the plants
grow well at low levels but produce practically no
alkaloids.
• The bitter constituents of Gentiana lutea
increases with altitude, whereas the alkaloids
of Aconitum napellus and Lobelia inflate and
the oil content of thyme and peppermint
decrease.

• Other oil-producing plants may reach a

maximum at certain altitude.
 Plant Altitude (meters)
Tea 1000-1500
Cinchona 1000-2000
Camphor 1500-2000
Cinnamon 250-1000
Coffee 1000-2000
Clove Up to 900
Saffron Up to 1250
Cardamom 600-1600
 Temperature
• Temperature is a major factor controlling the
development and metabolism of plants.

• Many tropical and subtropical plants will grow in

temperature region during summer months, but lack
frost resistance to withstand winter.

• The formation of volatile oils appears to be enhanced

at higher temperature, although very hot days may
lead to an excess physical loss of oil.
• The mean optimum temperature for nicotine
production in Nicotina rustica is 20˚C.
• Several authors have indicated that fixed oils
produced at low temperatures contain fatty
acids with a higher content of double bonds
than those formed at higher temperature.
• Excessive temperature, as well as, frost also
affects quality of medicinal plants adversely.

• Camphor and coffee cannot withstand frost,

whereas saffron needs only cold climate and
pyrethrum requires dry weather for cultivation.
 Plant Optimum Temperature
(°F)
Cinchona 60-75
Coffee 55-70
Tea 70-90
Cardamom 50-100
 Rainfall or irrigation
• Except the xerophytic plants like aloe, acacia and few
others, most of the plants need either proper
arrangements for irrigation or sufficient rainfall for
their favorable development.
• The important effect of rain fall must be considered in
relation to the annual rainfall, its distribution
throughout the year, its effect on humidity and its
effect coupled with the water-holding properties of the
soil.
• Continuous rain can lead to a loss of water-
soluble substances from leaves and roots by
leaching, this is known to apply to some plants
producing alkaloids, glycosides and even
volatile oils.
• With Cassia angustifolia (Tinnevelly senna) it
has been shown that short-term drought
increases the concentration of sennosides A+B
but in the longer term causes loss of leaf
biomass
 Soils and soil fertility
• Soil is the most important natural resource as
it supports growth of all plants. Soil provides
mechanical anchorage, as well as, water and
essential plant food elements for growth.

• Plant growth depends upon physical

arrangement and nature of soil particles,
organic matter content of soil and its living
organisms.
• The commonly known soil is the shallow upper
layer and is the friable material in which plant
find foot-hold and nourishment.
• Clay is one of the highly weathered portions of
the soil, consisting of finest particles
• Variations in particle size result in different soils
ranging from clay via sand, to gravel.
• Particle size is one factor influencing water-
holding capacity.
• The pH of soil decides favorable growth of plants and
presence of micro-organisms.

• Acidic soils are not suitable for leguminous plants

due to poor development of nodular bacteria.

• Therefore ground nut, sunflower seeds, cotton, and

rice grow better in alkaline soil.
• Acidic pH is disadvantageous as it solubilizes
more iron.
• Some plants like tobacco, cinchona, tea, and
potato grow well only in acidic soil.
• In alkaline soil phosphorus is converted to
insoluble form of calcium phosphate and so it
cannot be made available to plant.
• Soil consist of mineral, air, water and organic
matter.
• Mineral matter may be coarse gravel, coarse sand or
in the form of finest particle of clay and slit.
• Air and water give rise to pores, while putrified and
decayed plant and animal parts constitute the
organic matter.
Particle size (diameter) Types of soil

Less than 0.002mm Fine soil

0.002-0.02mm Coarse clay or slit
0.02-0.2mm Fine sand
0.2-2.00mm Coarse sand
Types of soil Percentage covered

Clay >50% of clay

Loamy 30-50% of clay
Slit loam 20-30% of clay
Sandy loam 10-20% of clay
Sandy soil >70% of sand
Calcarious soil >20% of lime
 Type of soil Organic matter

Poor soil Less than 0.5%

Intermediate soil 0.5 to 1.5%
Rich soil More than 1.5 to 5 %
• Soil for plant growth should have half of the
pore space filled with water and rest with air.
• Good aeration is essential for root
development.
 Soil fertility
• The capacity of soil to supply plant nutrients in
quantities and proportions required and to provide a
suitable medium for plant growth is known as soil
fertility.

• If cropping is done without fortification of soil with

plant nutrients, soil fertility gets lost. It is also
diminished through leaching and erosion. Soil
fertility can be maintained by addition of animal
manures, nitrogen-fixing bacteria or by application of
chemical fertilizers
 Fertilizers
• The use of fertilizers is often indispensable in order to
obtain large yields of medicinal plants.

• Plants require at least 16 elements for normal growth

and for completion of their life cycle.

• Some of them are known as primary nutrients like

nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
• Magnesium, calcium and sulphur are required
in small quantities and hence they are known
as secondary nutrients.

• Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and chlorine are

non mineral elements provided to plants by
water and air.
• Every elements has to perform some specific
functions in growth and development of plants.
Its deficiency is also characterized by certain
symptoms.
• Various parts of plants are used in
pharmaceutical industry for their active
constituents, for example, leaves, rhizomes, roots
etc.
• Some of the nutrients are responsible for
growth of particular parts of the plants body.

• Generally nitrogen fertilizers increase the size

of the plants and the amounts of alkaloids
produced.
• Chemical fertilizer:-
– Primary fertilizer: 16 nutrient (N. P.K.)
– Secondary fertilizer:- Mg, Ca, S.
– Micronutrient (trace element):-Cu, Mn, Fe, Bo,
Mo, Zn,
 Day-length and radiation
characteristics
• Plants vary much in both the amount and
intensity of the light which they require.
• Light is a factor which helps to determine the
amount of glycosides or alkaloids produced.
• With belladonna, stramonium and cinchona
ledgeriana full sunshine gives a higher content
of alkaloids than does shade.
• It has been shown that under long-day conditions
peppermint leaves contain menthone, menthol
and traces of menthofuran; plants grown under
short-day conditions contain menthofuran as a
major component of the volatile oil.
• Furthermore a long photoperiod for young
leaves activates the reduction pathway with
conversion of menthone to menthol.
• The type of radiation which plants receive is
also important.
• Flavonoids and anthocyanins are known to be
influenced by UV-B radiation.
 Time of Harvest
• The concentration of the biologically active
constituents varies with the stage of plant
growth and development.
• Medicinal plants should be harvested during
the optimal season or time period to ensure the
production of medicinal plant materials and
finished herbal products of the best possible
quality.
• Plant should be harvested at that time when it
contain maximum quantity and quality of
biologically active constituents rather than the
total vegetative yield of the targeted medicinal
plant parts.
• If harvesting occurs in wet conditions, the
harvested material should be transported
immediately to an indoor drying facility so as
to prevent any possible deleterious effects due
to increase moisture levels, which promote
microbial fermentation and mould.
 Pests and pest control
• Medicinal crop is harvested and consumed by
man, considerable quantity of crude drug is
wasted or destroyed by pest.
• Pest is an undesired animal or plant species
and pesticides are chemicals derived from
synthetic and natural sources effective in small
concentrations against pest.
 Types of pests:-
• The different type of pests infesting medicinal plants
are fungi, viruses, weeds, insects and non-insect pests
including rodents.
• (1) Fungi and Viruses: Different types of fungi are
known to occur on medicinal plants.
• Ascochyta atropae causes the formation of greyish-
white irregular spots which further causes necrosis of
leaves. The disease is called leaf necrosis.
(2) Insects:
• Various insect pests which attack medicinal plants
that can be enumerated here are Agrotis species;
Heliothis armigera, and odontotermes obesus.
• Belladona losses the leaves due to Gonocephalum
species and Agrotis flammatra.
(3) Weeds: A weed is undesired plants. Weeds are
considered as dreadful pests because losses due to
them are estimated to be more than those occurring
due to other pests and diseases combined together.
 (4) Non-insect pests:
1.Vertebrates like rats, monkeys, birds,
rabbits, squirrels, deer, pigs, etc.
2.Invertebrates like nematodes, crabs,
snails, mites.
 METHODS OF PEST CONTROL
(1) MECHNICAL METHOD:
• The simple techniques used are hand-picking,
pruning, burning and trapping of pests.
(2) AGRICULTURAL METHOD:
• It covers advanced plant breeding techniques which
produce pest resistant species.
• Another aspects in agricultural control is ploughing,
crop rotation.
(3) BIOLOGICAL CONTROL: This method is
practiced by combating the pests, mostly the insects,
with other living organisms.
(4) CHEMICAL CONTROL: The control of pests is
brought about with the use of chemical pesticides,
which include insecticides, fungicides, herbicides,
rodenticides, acaricides (miticides).
• The insecticides are applied to vegetative parts for
protective activity in the forms of spray, aerosol,
solution, suspensions and fine dust.
 Questions asked in GTU Exams
• Write the factors influencing cultivation of
medicinal plants. (June’10)
• Enlist factor influencing cultivation &
collection of medicinal plants. (Dec.’11)
• What is cultivation? Discuss advantages of it.
(June’11)
• Comment on types of soil. Which common
fertilizers are used to maintain soil
fertility?(June’11)
 Questions asked in GTU Exams
• Various factors affecting Cultivation and collection
of medicinal Plants. (Dec.’10)
• Write the factors influencing cultivation of
medicinal plants. (June’10)
• What are the factors affecting the cultivation,
collection and processing of crude drugs? (June’09)
• Write a note on types of soil. (Sept.’09)
• Discuss the advantages of cultivated medicinal
plants over their intact wild plants. (Sept.’09)