EFFECT OF LED LIGHTING ON GROWTH AND PHENOLIC CONTENT ON IN VITRO SEEDLINGS OF OCIMUM BASILICUM L. CULTIVAR ,,AROMAT DE BUZAU".

The aim of the experiment was to compare the effect of light emitting diodes - LED and fluorescent lamps (FL)d as sources of light on ,,in vitro" growth and development of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum L. cultivar ,,Aromat de Buzau"). Sweet basil is an important medicinal and aromatic plant used in aromatherapy, cosmetics, perfume and food products in fresh or dried form. A major difficulty in the use of Lamiaceae species for pharmaceutical purposes is the individual variability, due to genetic and biochemical heterogeneity. In vitro, micropropagation is an effective mean for rapid multiplication of species in which it is necessary to obtain a high progeny uniformity. Therefore, the interest in using these techniques for rapid and large-scale propagation of medicinal and aromatic plants has been significantly increasing. Basil seedlings were grown under four monochromatic lights irradiated with blue, green, yellow, red LEDs with peak wavelengths of 470, 500, 525 and 660 nm.Basil plants produced greater fresh herbage mass as well as shoot height under fluorescent lamps used as control after 60 days of light treatment. However, the total leaf area of lateral shoots was the largest one under red light. The total phenolic content of basil plants was significantly higher under blue LED illumination as compared to the rest of the treatments. Also, LEDs increased the amount of flavonoids compared to FL light. Our study demonstrates that LEDs did not affect growth characteristics and increased the total phenolic content as compared to conventional fluorescent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]