Characteristics of Some Agricultural and Quality Properties of St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) Clones

This study was aimed to determine some agricultural and quality characteristics of nine Hypericum perforatum L. clones developed with clone selection method and Topaz commercial variety under Bornova ecological conditions in 2007 and 2008. In trials, the plants were harvested twice each year. Plant height, fresh and drog herbage yield, fresh and drog herbage yield of top part of plant and hypericin content were determined. As a total, the highest fresh herbage yield, fresh and drog herbage yield of top part of plant were obtained from clone 16 with 2 558.3, clone 12 with 1 360.7 and clone 16 with 539.7 kg da^-1 in 2007, respectively. In 2008, the highest fresh herbage yield with clones 1, 2, 7 and 16 as 804.3, 796.5, 730.0 and 686.9 kg da^-1, and from top part of plant, fresh herbage yield with clones 7 and 16 as 403.3 and 396.8 kg da^-1 and drog herbage yield with clone 16 as 141.7 kg da^-1 were obtained, respectively. Effects of year and harvest time on yield and hypericin contents were statistically significant (P 0.05). Results concluded that clone 16 originated from Izmir-Ödemis-Bozdağ had the highest yield and Topaz, a commercial variety, was lowest for yield but the highest for hypericin contents (0.286% and 0.269%) at both years.