Effect of Supplemental Lighting and Elicitors on Antioxidant-Related Metabolites of Artemisia annua

The use of Artemisinin in the treatment of Malaria has shown great promise. However, the low level of the metabolite produced by the plant remains a major drawback. This work examined the use of supplemental lighting and elicitors as a strategy to enhance artemisinin biosynthesis. The work was conducted at the School of Agricultural Technology, Federal Polytechnic, Kaura Namoda. The experimental design was a split plot design with supplemental lighting, with two levels, normal lighting (12 hours) and supplemental lighting, using artificial grow light to extend lighting to 16 hours, in the main plot and three levels of elicitors, (Moringa leaf extract, Ascorbic acid, and no elicitor) in the sub-plot, with each treatment replicated three times. The work was set up using 8*10-inch grow bags. At harvest, whole plant samples were sun-dried, ground, and analyzed for artemisinin content, total phenol, total flavonoid, and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP). The results showed that the artemisinin level was Below Detection Limit (BDL), supplemental lighting with ascorbic acid elicitor consistently showed higher values for FRAP (86.84 %) and flavonoid (7.7 %), while supplemental lighting without elicitor showed higher results for phenolic content (0.68 mg/g).