Elettaria cardamomum leaves, an underutilized resource: chemical profile of its essential oil and insecticidal activity

ABSTRACT

Elettaria cardamomum is known as the ‘Queen of spices’; its leaf essential oil (EO) is least investigated and barely utilized. Here we report the chemical composition of E. cardamomum leaf EOs collected from five locations in the southern Western Ghats in India. EOs of fresh and dry capsules were also analyzed for comparison of their chemical profiles. The major constituents in cardamom leaf EOs were β-pinene (35.6–51.9%) and coronarin E (17.7–34.2%). In fumigant toxicity assays against two stored product pests, lowest LC₅₀ against Tribolium castaneum was recorded in EO of fresh capsules (124.05 µL/L), followed by dry capsules (LC₅₀ 128.21 µL/L) and leaves (LC₅₀ 148.00 µL/L); LC₅₀s of fresh, dry capsule and leaf EOs against Sitophilus oryzae were 30.24, 35.33 and 89.42 µL/L, respectively. This study demonstrates cardamom leaves as a source of untapped bioactive principles which can be viably utilized for the production of botanical pesticides.

KEYWORDS:

• Botanical pesticide
• chemical profile
• Elettaria cardamomum
• insecticidal activity
• leaf essential oil

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the help of (i) Mr. Lazer Mathew Pallithanam, Principal, Technical Higher Secondary School, Peerumedu, (ii) Mr. Shintu Scaria, Junior Research Fellow, Conservation Biology Division and (iii) Mr. Jithin Raj M. P., Junior Project Fellow, Garden Management Division, KSCSTE-JNTBGRI in collecting Elettaria cardamomum samples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Plan Project (KSCSTE/JNTBGRI P 07A) of the Government of Kerala.