Development of Environmental Control Method for Rapid Production of High Quality Hedyotis diffusa

The purpose of this research is to develop environmental control methods to realize rapid and high quality production of Hedyotis diffusa. Hedyotis diffusa has been used as herbal medicine and iridoid is a main medicinal property. In order to inspect the effect of light intensity on the concentration of iridoid in Hedyotis diffusa, the 2 experimental treatments were prepared by using a growth chamber; one was high intensity treatment (photon flux density of 170 μmol·s-1·m-2) and the other was low intensity treatment (70 μmol·s-1·m-2). Hydroponic culture was performed for 6 weeks in the growth chamber. The iridoid concentration was measured by a HPLC. As the results of non-parametric significance test for mean difference between high and low intensity treatment, significant differences were shown in the relative value of iridoid concentration. It was found that the high intensity condition could improve the quality and quantity of Hedyotis diffusa.