Environmental Effects on Quality Parameters of Plant Products Ercan CEYHAN + , Ali KAHRAMAN, Mustafa ÖNDER Selcuk University, Agricultural Faculty, Department of Field Crops, Konya – TURKEY Abstract. Plant species depend on specific environment conditions to optimum growing. There are various agricultural areas that comprised from plant species which originated in climatically quite different regions. Plants absorb many elements from soil which have biological function and some of them are known as toxic also at low amounts. In case of environmental conditions change, plants will response as changing some of their metabolic activities. So that some of the quality parameters will change. Some of the plants can adopt as well as reasonable values, but some of them will be affected negatively. Although human are not able to or has limits to change ecological situations, they also able to recognize some characteristics of plants and again can develop new plant species and regulate or eliminate some of the harmful effects of environment on plant quality parameters for adaptation to different climatic conditions. If we know the effects of ecological conditions on plants, the definition and improvement of plant quality parameters will be easy. Therefore plants are the basic place of food chain; there are some sorrows about their quality and credibility. Keywords: ecology, enzyme, food, human nutrition, inhibitors 1. Introduction Environmental is a concept that encompasses all the factors that affect an organism and this term also among the basic terms of ecology. Any organism is not independent from its own environment. Environment includes all internal-external factors and forces also for plants. External factors cover light, water, temperature, wind, soil etc. elements [1]. Features of the environment are determined by the contributions of factors that constitute it. Impact degrees of factors vary as depend on plant species. For example, while cool climate legumes (peas, broad beans, chickpeas and lentils) show the best developments around 18-20 o C, hot-climate legumes (beans, cowpeas) show a better development around 20-24 o C. This shows us the plants able to adjust to very different ecologies. In addition, the best plant growth and development takes place when there is an optimal level of environmental factors. Changing in environmental conditions may cause deterioration of plants to grow and develop to a certain extent. Accordingly, it will cause a change in the quality of the plants. Quality parameters seems to be particularly sensitive to environmental stress such as rainfall, light intensity, length of growing season, length of day, temperature as well as agronomic factors such as plant density, weeds, or soil fertility [2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. 2. Some Quality Parameters and Effects of Environment 2.1. Proteins Plant products are cheap and high quality sources of protein. While cereal grains have around 11 % protein, legumes have 18-30 % protein average. Legumes have higher amounts of amino acids such as thriptophane, lysine and aspartic acid. However, cereals have methionine, cystine, and glutamic acid more than legumes. The negative effects of unbalanced amino acids suppose to eliminate for optimal nutrition [3]. Protein content is one of the most important criteria used in determining the quality of plant products. Protein content is influenced largely by environmental factors [4, 5, 6]. External factors that affecting the amount of protein, are also the factors which affecting the duration of plant maturing periods. Protein decreases in grains after pollination because of the environment conditions which have rainy weather, cool and damp + Corresponding author. Tel.: + 90 332 223 28 56; fax: +90 332 241 01 08. E-mail address: eceyhan@selcuk.edu.tr. 23 2011 International Conference on Biology, Environment and Chemistry IPCBEE vol.24(2011) © (2011)IACSIT Press, Singapoore