Keeping quality of sweet basil and purple basil.

Breeding Sweet Basil for Chilling Tolerance

Sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L., Lamiaceae) is a tropical species native to East Africa (Simon et al. 1990; Vieira and Simon 2000, 2006; Vieira et al. 2003). Sweet basil can be damaged in the field by chilling temperatures in spring and fall, and when stored and transported. Temperatures below 5°C lead to significant leaf necrosis and damage has been observed when temperatures drop below 10°C ...

Nocturnal Fanning Suppresses Downy Mildew Epidemics in Sweet Basil

Downy mildew is currently the most serious disease of sweet basil around the world. The oomycete causal agent Peronospora belbahrii requires ≥ 4h free leaf moisture for infection and ≥7.5h of water-saturated atmosphere (relative humidity RH≥95%) at night for sporulation. We show here that continued nocturnal fanning (wind speed of 0.4-1.5 m/s) from 8pm to 8am dramatically suppressed downy milde...

Pepsinogen BASIL

Light Quality Dependent Changes in Morphology, Antioxidant Capacity, and Volatile Production in Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

Narrow-bandwidth light treatments may be used to manipulate plant growth, development and metabolism. In this report LED-based light treatments were used to affect yield and metabolic content of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L. cv "Ceasar") grown in controlled environments. This culinary herb produces an aroma highly appreciated by consumers, primarily composed of terpenes/terpenoids, phenylpro...

Antioxidant Activity of Basil

INTRODUCTION The commercial development of plants as sources of antioxidants to enhance health and food preservation is of current interest (Rice-Evans et al. 1997). Epidemiological studies have suggested positive associations between the consumption of phenolic-rich foods or beverages and the prevention of diseases (Scalbert and Williamson 2000). These effects have been attributed to antioxida...