Profiling of essential oil in Tirur vettilai (Piper betle L.), a group of unique betel vine land races from Malappuram district, Kerala

In Kerala, Tirur and nearby areas of Malappuram district are famous for betel vine cultivation covers an area of 183 ha (FIB, 2014) [1]. Betel vine cultivars from Malappuram district, popular as Tirur vettila, possess some special biochemical characters like unique flavor and aroma. The present investigation was carried out to study the chemical composition of betel vine land races in Tirur and nearby areas of Malappuram district and to characterize the land races based on biochemical components of essential oil. Essential oil studies were undertaken with Muvattupuzha local as check variety, a variety from Ernakulum district, Kerala. Puthukodi, Chelan, Karinadan and Nadan were the betel vine cultivars recorded from Malappuram District. Puthukodi and Nadan were the most common cultivars whereas Chelan and Karinadan were the cultivars conserved by few farmers. Essential oil content was maximum in Muvattupuha Local, a cultivar with high pungency and it was low in Chelan. GC studies revealed that, eugenol was the major component of essential oil in all land races with high content (20.80 percent) in Chelan. Possible compounds identified from the chromatograms of oil from different land races were hydroxychavicol, β caryophyllene and 5-(2-propenyl)-1, 3- benzodioxole.