Determination of variability of essential oil and agricultural characterization of Satureja hortensis L. in the flowering stage in the Çukurova condition

This study was conducted to investigate determination of variability of essential oil and agricultural characterization of Satureja hortensis L. ın the flowering stage, at experiment area of Field Crops Department, Çukurova University, Agriculture Faculty, during 2006- 2007 and 2008-2008 under Çukurova ecological conditions. In the plant height, number of branch, fresh herbage yield, dry herbage yield, dry leaves yield, essential oil content of dry leaves, and composition of essential oil by GC-MS were determined during eight cutting.In the research, plant height, number of branch, fresh and dry herbage yield in the experiment years varied 28.1- 31.0 cm, 22.5-22.9 per plant, 790.5-1085.0 kg/da and 345.4-455.7 kg/da, respectively. Dry leaeves yields were 261.6 and 338.1 kg/da in the first and second year. Mean of essential oil content was varied between 3.15 % and 2.30 %. The main constituents of essential oil were determined as carvacrol, ?-terpinene and p-cimene in the each cutting and both years. The most suitable cutting time in terms of content of essential oil was beginning of flowering stage.