I am concerned with the study of insecticidal efficacy of certain plant extracts, the plants chosen are mostly wild herbs and shrubs. I collect the plants for the experiment during their flowering stage, however recently it was suggested that it is important to determine the plant age before collection.
It would probably be useful to know, also the date the plant was collected. One should also note if the plant was damaged. Some compounds are produced as a result of stress, such as being attacked by insects. If insects attack plants only during a certain part of the year, the plant probably won't expend energy producing insecticidal compounds during the rest of the year. In addition, plants may be more vunerable to certain insect pests at different portions of their growth cycle and the plant mave have evolved to produce protective compounds only during the vunerable portion of their life.
It would probably be useful to know, also the date the plant was collected. One should also note if the plant was damaged. Some compounds are produced as a result of stress, such as being attacked by insects. If insects attack plants only during a certain part of the year, the plant probably won't expend energy producing insecticidal compounds during the rest of the year. In addition, plants may be more vunerable to certain insect pests at different portions of their growth cycle and the plant mave have evolved to produce protective compounds only during the vunerable portion of their life.
Which organs are you using? The growth stage of leaves, for example, tends to be important as well. Younger leaves tend to have less metabolic flexibility than older leaves.
Thanx a lot for your answers...the plant parts am using are mostly the leaves and sometimes the fruits. As I understand, metabolite profiling of the plant parts might be more useful than determining the plant age at the time of collection. Please correct me if i am wrong.
Okay, I understand why you don't want you pay attention to organ age, however it really is important! The reason that plants make secondary metabolites is usually because they are needed for something, you have to be especially careful with fruit age, they can change drastically overtime! Consider that flower petals are an evolution of leaves, as they go from flowerbuds (essentially leaves) to flowers to fruits there is an incredible change in the physiology which is then match by drastic changes in metabolism as the role of the tissues change... If you do not have the expertise or it is particularly difficult to distinguish the difference between the ages, make sure you collect a lot of material from a lot of different plants to maximise the probability that you will catch your chemical of interest!
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