Action of Essential Oils on Sprouting of Non-Dormant Potato Tubers

• Autor(a) principal: Finger,Fernando Luiz
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Santos,Mirelle Mayana de Sousa, Araujo,Fernanda Ferreira, Lima,Paula Cristina Carvalho, Costa,Lucas Cavalcante da, França,Christiane de Fatima Martins, Queiroz,Matheus da Costa
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Archives of Biology and Technology
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-89132018000100206
• topic: Solanum tuberosum; eugenol; menthol; buds; periderm

ABSTRACT The breakdown of dormancy and early sprouting is one of the main causes of losses of stored potatoes. Sprouting control becomes important especially when tubers are submitted to long-term storage for further processing by the potato industry. The objective of this work is to evaluate the effect of organic sprout inhibitors, eugenol and menthol essential oils, on the suppression of growth on non-dormant ‘Asterix’ tubers stored at 8 °C. Administration of eugenol and menthol essential oils reduced the number and the length of sprouts during cold storage up to fifty days. Nevertheless, the essential oils stimulated the break of bud apical dominance, stimulating auxiliary buds growth. The effect of the oils was restricted to inducing necrosis of superficial sprout cells without any apparent effect on the skin periderm structure. Repeated applications of oils are necessary to prolong the inhibitory effects of the essential oils on sprouts growth.