Laboratory selection of Artemisia annua L. for high artemisinin yielding types

Artemisia annua L. (Asteraceae) contains artemisinin, a sesquiterpene lactone with promising antimalarial properties. At present the artemisinin content in plants grown in the open in the Netherlands is too low for industrial purposes. We describe a new method for laboratory selection to identify high yielding individual plants for the purpose of seed production and subsequent efficient cropping. During the procedure thin layer chromatography and high performance liquid chromatography were used as methods of analysis for artemisinin. Selected 11‐week‐old plantlets were transferred from the laboratory into the open in the summer of 1989. We have observed that plants which are high yielding in the laboratory continue to be so in the field. The A. annua crop which had been sown‐out directly had on average a 3–4‐fold lower artemisinin content.