Practical Work Book for Essential Oil Bearing Crops

Contents: 1. Soil analysis report. 2. Nursery and field preparations. 3. Seed, seed germination and seedling demography. 4. Seed dormancy. 5. Quantification of growth and development: a novel approach. 6. Essential oil determination in lab conditions. 7. Quantification of essential oil adaptations. 8. Essential oil growth model - practical applications. 9. Quality control of essential oils. 10. Marketing: approaches for essential oils. Essential oil derived from aromatic plants find wide application in perfume, flavour, fragrance and pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. There has been a significant increase in demand for essential oils and aromatic plants during the past 35 years. Although, some aromatic herbs/varieties are grown already there is a need to develop cultivation and distillation methods appropriate for newly developed elite strains/varieties of aromatic plants along with new end-products and novel strategies. Incorporating essential oil production into farming practices has the potential to benefit all growers of aromatic crops. Many such growers are small farmers with limited resources. Adding essential oil production to already existing operations allows growers to make a new value added commodity with the potential for increased earning and local jobs especially in depressed agricultural areas.…