Effect of Variety, Gibberellic Acid Concentration and Spraying Duration on Steroidal Saponine Concentration of Trigonella foenum – graecum L.

Abstract

A biological experiment was conducted in the field of Biology Department-College of Education (Ibn Al-Haitham) University of Baghdad for growing season of (2004-2005), to study the effect of two varieties of the fenugreek plant (Trigonella foenum – graeccum L.) and gibberellic acid concentration (0, 25, 50, 100, 125) part per million and duration of four spraying (15, 20, 25, 30) day determining concentration medicinal active saponine compounds like (Trigonelline, choline, Carpaine and Gentianine).  The experiment was performed according to complete Randomize Complete Blocks Design (RBCD) by three replicate was adopted, means were compared by using the least significant difference at (0.05) probability level. Results showed that the concentration of Gibberellic acid the duration of spraying and the varieties have different effective Steroidal Saponine compounds percentage in the fenugreek plant. The two varieties showed difference in response regarding their content of steroidal saponine for the Indian variety surpassed the local variety in the compounds neotigogenin, smilagenin and yamogenin ; while the local variety surpassed the Indian variety in the seeds content of tigogenin and diosgenin .