Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Acta Physiologiae Plantarum (2020) 42:23 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-019-2996-5 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Flower yield and chemical composition of essential oil from Rosa damascena under foliar application of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 and seasonal variation Mitali Mahajan 1,2  · Probir Kumar Pal 1,2 Received: 23 October 2018 / Revised: 6 December 2019 / Accepted: 26 December 2019 © Franciszek Górski Institute of Plant Physiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków 2020 Abstract Rosa damascena is an important essential oil-bearing industrial crop. Rose essential oil is extremely precious natural ingre- dient in aromatic, cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical industries. However, ecology and plant nutrition play major roles in fower yield and composition of oil. The main objective was to understand the efects of seasonal variation and foliar applica- tion of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 on R. damascena under the western Himalayan conditions. Thus, a feld experiment was conducted with 12 treatment combinations involving two cropping seasons (2012–2013 and 2013–2014) and six levels of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 (water spray as control, Ca(NO 3 ) 2 at 2.5, 5.0, 7.5, 10.0 and 12.5 g L −1 of water). The frst cropping season produced signifcantly higher fower yield (1044.55 g bush −1 ) than the second cropping season (699.89 g bush −1 ). Irrespective of the cropping seasons, the foliar application of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 at 10.0 g L −1 registered signifcantly higher fower yield (993.56 g bush −1 ) compared with the controlled treatment, but remained statistically at par with 7.5 and 12.5 g L −1 . Although the essential oil content in fower was not afected by both the factors, the variations were observed in chemical compositions of essential oil. Analysed data revealed that the efect of seasonal variation on compositions of essential oil was more pronounced compared to the applica- tion of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 . The PCA biplots also indicated the highly positive correlations among the major hydrocarbons. Despite the signifcant efects of seasonal variation on the accumulations of total N and P in leaves, insignifcant results were found for K and Chl. The results suggest that fower yield and compositions of oil are governed by the environmental conditions; moreover, the higher fower yield can be obtained through the foliar application of Ca(NO 3 ) 2 under rainfed conditions. Keywords Ca(NO 3 ) 2  · Essential oil · Geraniol · Rainfed conditions · Rosa Damascena · Seasonal variation Introduction Damask rose (Rosa damascena Mill.), belonging to the family of Rosaceae, is an important essential oil-bearing industrial crop. It is a species of Bulgaria and Turkey, but cultivated in many parts of the world (Baydar et al. 2004; Tabaei-Aghdaei et al. 2006; Kazaz et al. 2010; Pal and Singh 2013) for essential oil. Now, it is distributed in diferent countries such as France, Italy, Ukraine, Morocco, Libya, Turkey, Crimea, India, China, and North Korea (Buttner 2001). The prevailing environmental factors during fower- ing period determine the oil content in the fowers (Najem et al. 2011). The main product from the rose are rose con- crete, rose absolute, rose water and essential oil. The oil content in fower of R. damascena is low, and availability of synthetic substitutes is lacking in the market. Thus, rose essential oil has become an extremely precious natural ingre- dient for perfumery in aromatic industries (Yilmaz et al. 2011). Rose oil is widely used in pharmacology (Basim Communicated by P. Wojtaszek. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11738-019-2996-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Probir Kumar Pal pkpal_agat@yahoo.in; palpk@ihbt.res.in 1 Division of Agrotechnology of Medicinal, Aromatic and Commercially Important Plants, Council of Scientifc and Industrial Research-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (CSIR-IHBT), Post Box No. 6, Palampur, HP 176061, India 2 CSIR-IHBT, Academy of Scientifc and Innovative Research (AcSIR), Post Box No. 6, Palampur, HP 176061, India