Essential Oil Yield, Chemical Composition, and Total Citral Content of Nine Cultivars of Cymbopogon Species from Western India

ABSTRACTThe essential oil composition of five elite Cymbopogon varieties (OD-19, Pragati, RRL-16, NLG-84) and a hybrid (CPK-25) and four new selections (LS-1 to LS-4) were determined by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The oil yield ranged from 0.31% to 1.0% with CPK-25 (1.0%) and LS-2 (0.95%) containing the highest. A total of 66 compounds, constituting 84.6–94.3% of the oils, were identified. The main compounds were geranial (29.9–41.6%), neral (25.8–32.5%), citronellol (0.3–12.8%), geranyl acetate (1.2–8.4%), and geraniol (1.8–8.2%). Of the cultivars, OD-19 (74.1%) had the highest and LS-3 (55.7%) contained the lowest amount of total citral. CKP-2…