International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710&E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 5, 2016 || Bioinfo Publications || 1021 INFLUENCE OF GROWING CONDITIONS ON YIELD AND ESSENTIAL OIL OF CORIANDER DURING YEAR-ROUND CULTIVATION GUHA S. 1 *, DEBNATH S. 2 AND SHARANGI A.B. 1 1 Department of Spices and Plantation Crops, Faculty of Horticulture, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741252, Nadia, West Bengal, INDIA 2 Department of Crop Improvement, Horticulture and Agricultural Botany, Institute of Agriculture, Visva-Bharati University, Sriniketan, West Bengal, INDIA *Corresponding Author: Email-g.sagarika1@gmail.com Received: January 25, 2016; Revised: February 05, 2016; Accepted: February 06, 2016 Citation: Guha S., et al., (2016) Influence of Growing Conditions on Yield and Essential Oil of Coriander during Year-Round Cultivation. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences, ISSN: 0975-3710 & E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 5, pp.-1021-1026. Copyright: Copyright©2016 Guha S., et al., This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Introduction Coriander is one of the most important crops in the world. It is being used for culinary purpose due to its tender leaves with characteristic flavor and the seed powder used as spice. The fresh coriander herb, containing essential oil [1], fatty acids [2], flavonoids [3], carotenoids [4] as well as coumarin compounds [5]. The essential oil isolated from coriander is popular for medicinal properties [6-9]. Coriander, mainly grown as winter crop for commercial seed production in India, is well adapted to specific climatic conditions. Protected cultivation in summer days is a possible alternative for farmers to control external climatic factors, which may affect germination of coriander seeds and leaf yield. In mild climate, coriander can be grown round the year for leaf purpose provided moisture is made available. In hot weather, the crop can be grown for leaves under ensured irrigation facilities. However, extreme weather especially high temperature affects the yield adversely. It causes bolting which results in less number of cuttings and ultimately lesser green yields. On the contrary, coriander, as a synthesizing essential oil yielding crop, is high temperature requiring at the stage of degenerative development [10] . Protected cultivation provides the best way to increase the productivity and quality of vegetables as well as biotic and abiotic stress situation compared to open field condition [11]. To make the situation congenial, some low cost structure (50% agro shade net as roofing material) may be used especially during off-season. Greenhouse cultivation showed superior yield and yield attributing characters as compared to open field condition [12]. Differences in changes in microclimate at different stages of crop growth can be offered by varying dates of sowing in coriander. This changing microclimate is the resultant effect arising out of various climatic components maximum temperature (Tmax), minimum temperature (Tmin), maximum relative humidity (RHmax), minimum relative humidity (RHmin), solar radiation and soil temperature. The shade net houses during high temperature months reduce the temperature up to 5 0 C under the net and thereby increase the relative humidity, thus providing optimum environmental conditions for the growth of coriander [13]. With the increase in atmospheric temperature, absorption of CO2 increases and consumes a lot of energy to absorb water causing reduction in production of photosynthetic matters eventually causing low dry matter [14]. However, consequent changes due to the effect of crop canopy may be excluded for consideration of the overall microclimate as coriander is having with a very much negligible crop canopy. Several attempts have been made by a number of researchers on the response of coriander to dates of sowing as well as to cutting management [15-16]. Highest leaf yield was found in two cuttings and highest seed yield was observed in one cutting [17-18]. Sharangi et al., [15] showed that, a foliar spray of nitrogen (2.5% urea) may be beneficial for coriander leaf production under multicut system and the crop is sensitive to rainfall, photo temperature and morning humidity. Panda et al., [19] found several growth regulators to influence growth, yield and quality of coriander. But, as such the information available so far on leaf production of coriander with differential sowing dates in multi-cut system both under open and shade net protection is very much scanty especially under Gangetic alluvial situation of West Bengal. Accordingly, experiments were carried out to explore the possibility of coriander leaf production under multi cut system round the year in the new alluvial zone of West Bengal and to find out the relation of growth and development of coriander with the changing microclimate, it has been found worthwhile in this situation. Besides, the essential oil content of the crop was also studied here to find out the relevant relation with microclimate. International Journal of Agriculture Sciences ISSN: 0975-3710&E-ISSN: 0975-9107, Volume 8, Issue 5 2016, pp.-1021-1026. Available online at http://www.bioinfopublication.org/jouarchive.php?opt=&jouid=BPJ0000217 Abstract- Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) is an important crop for its tender leaves with characteristic flavor used for culinary preparations as well as the seed used mainly in powder form as spice. Protected cultivation in summer days is a possible alternative to farmers to manage external climatic factors, which may affect seed’s germination and plant biomass of coriander. To find out the relationship between growth and development of coriander with microclimate, a study was conducted under open and protected conditions. Result showed a significant negative correlation between maximum temperature (Tmax) with green leaf yield after one cut (r= -0.823*), green leaf yield after two cut (r= -0.862*) and essential oil content of leaf in no cut (r= -0.829*). Besides, essential oil of leaf in one cut was found positively correlated with both maximum relative humidity (RH max) (r= 0.861*) and minimum relative humidity (RH min) (r= 0.431). Significant negative correlation was observed between Tmax and seed yield (r= -0.853*). Interestingly RHmin and seed essential oil was positively correlated (r=0.880 ** ). No correlation was found between Tmax fluctuation and leaf yield. RHmax was positively correlated with green yield after one cut (r= 0.996**) and green yield after two cut (r= 0.962**). Keywords- Coriander, Essential oil, Protected cultivation, Microclimate, Leaf yield.