Effect of Growth Regulators on Rooting of Andrographis neesiana: A Valuable Endemic Medicinal Plant of India
The present study deals with the vegetative propagation prospects of an endemic medicinal plant Andrographis neesiana Wight, which is familiarly used in herbal medicine for the treatment of several diseases. Due to over exploitation this plant is disappearing from original habitat hence its cultivation on commercial scale is suggested. Stem cuttings of Andrographis neesiana are advantageous to root. Treatment with Indole-3-Butyric Acid (IBA) and a-Napthalene Acetic Acid (NAA) raised rooting and increased shoot development in greenhouse under intermittent misting. IBA and NAA treated cuttings performed improve in all development parameters compared to control. The highest percentage of rooting was observed in IBA 1500 ppm (68.10%). The maximum root length was noted in IBA 2000 ppm (11.20 cm). The roots were profuse and branched in characteristic. Besides this, the survival rate of IBA treated plantlets was 86.45% and NAA treated plantlets was 72.61% in comparison to control where it was 7.32%. The percentage of rooting and root length upgraded by using plant growth hormones, either separate or together. The present investigation concludes that clonal multiplication of these an endemic medicinal plant is feasible through application of plant growth regulators. The significance of these findings on the propagation and conservation of A. neesiana is discussed.
Medicinal plants contain importances that can be used for biotherapeutic applications or which are used as precursors for the synthesis of beneficial (Sofowora 1993). The medicinal characteristics of plants lies in their phytochemicals namely alkaloids, flavonoids in addition to other phenolic compounds that co-opt as to producing particular physiological properties to the body of man and animals (Che Man, 2010). However, analysis of extract of Andrographis neesiana was found to be rich in flavones to the expensive phytoconstituent potentialities of the plant. Andrograhis neesiana is therefore grown as a medicinal species for the curing of many ailments particularly in India. (Alagesaboopathi and Balu 1999; Alagesaboopathi and Sivkumar 2011; Ponvinobala et al., 2012a). Andrographis neesiana Wight belongs to the family Acanthaceae and has been widely used in healthcare traditions. The rooted plants by cottage have various advantages such as faster growth rate (Ooyamma and Toyoshima, 1965), greater stock stand uniformity, improve site matching and true-to-type planting material production (Fielding, 1969). Cuttings can be categorized into 3 groups as comfortable to root, difficult to root and inflexible to root (Nanda, 1970).
Species of Andrographis Wallich ex Nees (Acanthaceae) are used in the Indian systems of medicine namely, Siddha, Ayurveda, Unani, Naturopathy, Homeopathy, Amachi and Modern (Alagesaboopathi and Balu, 1999). The genus Andrographis as a whole is of potentialities significance to India. The genus exhibits antipyretic characteristics (Kirtikar and Basu, 1975). This genus consists 40 species distributed in Tropical Asia (Anonymous, 1948). About 21 species are distributed in India (Gamble, 1982) and all of them available in Tamilnadu. (Henry et al., 1987). Among the 21 species 18 species are reported to be endemic to India (Ahmedullah and Nayar, 1986). Andrographis neesiana Wight (Fig. 1) is an endemic medicinal species (Ahmedullah and Nayar, 1986) found in wild in Shevaroy Hills of Salem district of Tamilnadu (11o45 and 11o55 N and 78o11 to 78o20E) upto 1500 m.
The pharmaceutical industries is widely dependent upon the wild populations for providing these plant species for extraction of their intrinsic phytochemicals. Moreover, herbal medicine practitioners, local medicine men, village dwellers, vaidyas, tribals (Malayalis), forest dwellers, and other traditional healers often use these collection of the plant materials from forests and lacking experiments either to allow the replenishment or propagation, these critical flora are rapidly vanishing. As a importance, A. neesiana declared as an endemic plant in India (Ahmedullah and Nayar, 1986). Therefore, there is an immediate need to enlarge serviceable cultivation techniques for propagation of these noteworthy medicinal floras which will excessively commercial application. Andrographis neesiana has been used in the treatment of aphrodisiac and antifungal property (Alagesaboopathi and Balu, 1999; Alagesaboopathi and Balu, 2000). Several medicinal properties such as cough, edema, laxative, bitter and overcomes trouble in breathing, worms, liver complaints, acidity, burning sensation, syphilitic ulcers, skin disorders and also veterinary medicines have been attributed to this plant in the traditional systems of Indian medicine (Sivarajan and Balachandran, 2001). It is used in the treatment of antimicrobial, antioxidant and anticancer activity (Alagesaboopathi and Sivakumar, 2011; Ponvinobala et al., 2012 a, b).
Two new flavonoids, 2, 4, 6, 2, 3, 4- hexamethoxychalcone and 5-hydroxy -7, 2, 5 - trimethoxyflavone together with a known flavone glycoside, echioidinin 5-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside were isolated from the whole plant extract of Andrographis neesiana (Muntha Kesava Reddy et al., 2003). There is no previous report on use of growth hormones in vegetative propagation of this useful plant. The work was undertaken to result rooting response of A. neesiana under greenhouse using growth regulators and outcomes reported. Auxin is one of the factors for stimulating root productions in cuttings (Hartman et al., 1990). Thakur and Gupta (1998) reported that cutting of Alnus nitida with various concentration of IBA and obtained the maximum root percentage at IBA 800 ppm.
Rooting of stem cutting through action of growth hormones has been undertaken as a protocol for broad scale propagation of this plant following the approach of Senthilkumar et al., 2009; Akwatulira et al., 2011; Saradha and Paulsamy, 2012). Auxins, a category of plant evolution substances are often called as plant growth hormones and performance an important role in coordination of many growth and behavioral technique in the plant life cycle (Tiwari and Kuntal Das, 2010). Indole-3-Acetic Acid (IAA), -Naphthalene Acetic Acid (NAA) and Indole -3-Butyric Acid (IBA) are conventionally the leading auxins which are usable commercially and can be applied with liquid (liquid formulation) or in talc (powder formulation) for rooting and sprouting of stem cuttings (Hopkins, 1999). The present study therefore aimed at ascertaining the most suitable propagation A. neeisana using stem cuttings. In the present study, the stem cuttings of A. neesiana were treated by plant growth regulators (PGRs), IBA and NAA. The aim of this investigation was to test the potential outcome of plant growth regulators on the stem cuttings and to prefer an optimal concentration of plant growth regulators for stem cuttings of A. neesiana
Source : Effect of growth regulators on rooting of Andrographis neesiana Wight. – a valuable endemic medicinal plant of India