Effects Of Different Storage Conditions On The Quality Of Polygonatum Sibiricum Red

Polygonatum sibiricum Red. which attribute to Polygonatum Liliaceae is a traditional Chinese medicine in our country. With the expansion of Chinese herbal medicine market, the large amount of medicine need to intensively store,but the storage conditions and shelf life have a great influence on the quality of Polygonatum sibiricum. The factors such as temperature, light and air can cause the phenomenon of mildew and worm-eaten of Polygonatum sibiricum, reduce the pesticide effect, even damage the health of the users. With the development of the era, traditional Chinese medicine storage technology is also updates in constant. In this study, using the pretreated and dyed Polygonatum sibiricum as the raw materials, we set four kinds of storage conditions: high- temperature and high-humidity, low-temperature and drying, normal-temperature in the dark, Normal-temperature lighting,and used three kinds of packaging: the Cardboard boxes, woven bag, and Vacuum, combing with the three indexs of polysaccharide content and the change of water-soluble extract content, ethanol-soluble extracts to research the change of Polygonatum sibiricum Red. quality during storage. The results of this study are as follows:1. The change of active ingredients of Polygonatum sibiricum during storage: The content of polysaccharide and extract have declined in varying degrees during 10 months storage. The content of polysaccharide declined most significantly, then is Aqueous extract, the decline of alcohol extract is the minimum.2. The shelf life of Polygonatum sibiricum on different storage conditions:(1) On high- temperature and high-humidity, Polygonatum sibiricum of ordinary packaging completely mildewed in three months, and had appeared the phenomenon of worm-eaten, the polysaccharide content was under level of 7%,which is not conform to the national pharmacopoeia standards. In the environment, Polygonatum sibiricum with vacuum packing didn’t appear metamorphic phenomenon, but after five months it also did not conform to the national pharmacopoeia standards.(2) In normal temperature conditions, the storage period of Polygonatum sibiricum in the common packing should not be more than eight months, and in vacuum packaging it can be stored more than 10 months.(3) On the condition of low temperature(4 ℃), the indexes of three kinds of packaged Polygonatum sibiricum all conform to the requirements of the pharmacopoeia in 10 months, so it can be stored for more than 10 months. Considering with its cost, on the low temperature environment, small batch storage is most suitable.3. The influences on the quality of different packaged Polygonatum sibiricum:(1) On high- temperature and high-humidity, only vacuum packed Polygonatum sibiricum didn’t appear qualitative change and it had the longest shelf life, it’s obviously better than ordinary packaging;(2) There was less difference in the effective ingredient content of Polygonatum sibiricum packaged by three kinds of methods on normal temperature and low-temperature, and vacuum packaging is slightly better than ordinary packaging.4. The influences on the Polygonatum sibiricum quality of temperature, humidity and illumination conditions:(1) High-temperature and high-humidity environment could accelerate the decrease of the quality of Polygonatum sibiricum, so Polygonatum sibiricum should be stored avoiding high temperatures.(2) On the conditions of packaged by woven bag, there is no significant difference on the influence of the Polygonatum sibiricum polysaccharide content on illumination and dark, but the difference of ethanolsoluble extracts had the significant difference, so the storage of Polygonatum sibiricum should avoid direct sunlight.