Studies On Quality Evaluation Of Under Forest Ginseng

The under forest ginseng is the seed of garden ginseng or wild ginseng, and if manul planted in forest,the product is called Zihai after grown for more than 10—20 years. The older of the age, the higher value ofthe product is. The shape and inner quality of the under forest ginseng could be the same as wild ginsengwith high economic value if cultivated in suitable natural environment and under carefully and scientificfosterage. So the quality estimation of the under forest ginseng will provide better instruction forapplications.As one of traditional rare herbs in China, ginseng is famous all around the world because of itsabundant chemical contents, effective bioactivitiy, and its special effect in pharmacology. The under forestginseng gets more and more attentions because it can be used as the substitute of the wild ginseng.However, up to now, the research in under forest is only confined in cultivation, and there are less reportsreferring its pharmacology and medicine applications. Thus, it is important to do further and systematicreseach on the chemical contents of the under forest ginseng especially on ginsenosides for applications.In my study, we collected under forest ginseng with different ages and areas and their control gardenginseng as well. The contents of Rg₁,Re,R_f,Rg₂,Rb₁,Rc,Rb₂,Rb₃ and Rd were investigated throughHPLC. After comparing the differences in terms of areas, ages, official parts and types, we confirmed thatthe under forest ginseng had all of these 9 contents, and its contents changed evidently with the increase ofage and there were also variations in different official parts of the ginseng.Generally, the contents of Rg₁,Re,Rb₁ are considered to be the physichemical index of ginsengmedicine quality in pharmacology law. In this paper, three kinds of ginsenosides were analyzed andcompared systematically. The results indicated that the contents of Rg₁ in different parts of the under forestginseng underwent a trend of first increasing and then decreasing with the increase of age, while for Re thetrend was first decreasing and then increasing. The total contents of Rg₁ and Re showed positive correlationwith the age and there were more contents of Rg₁+Re in the rhizome than other parts of the ginseng. Themost content of Rb₁ in ginseng existed in the part of fibrous roots and rose evidently with the increase ofage.The antioxidant activity of the under forest ginseng was detected using DPPH·for the first time inmy research. The results indicated that all the samples under research had the ability of eliminating the freeradical and the older of the ginseng, the stronger ability of elimination. In our tests, 30% EtOH solution wasconfirmed to be a better extracting medium than 50% and 70% ones.The pesticide remains were also investigated in our tests. There were less pesticide remains in underforest ginseng which indicated the under forest ginseng grew under natural condition without pesticide. We analyzed the content of organochlorine in the soil of the under forest ginseng. The results indicated thatthere were infinitesimal pesticides in the soil which was suitable for ginseng cultivation. Every index of thepesticide remains accorded with the limit standard of National Agricultural Department. There were 21kinds of microelements in the soil sample, in which Fe, Cu, Zn, Mn and Be were indispensablemicroelements and Ca and Mg were macroelements.In conclusion, ginsenosides contents in under forest ginseng were preliminary investigated in thispaper, and the comparisons of the under forest ginseng with different areas and ages were also done. All thework we did provided reliable data for accurate estimation of quality of the under forest ginseng.