Effect of Copper and Zinc on the Quality and Security of Salviae Miltiorrhizae Bunge

Copper and Zinc are essential nutrient elements of plants, playing an important role in the metabolism of plants, which produced great important influence on the secondary metabolism of plant. However, higher content of external copper and zinc produced toxicity to plant. Hydroponic experiments were conducted to study the effect of copper and zinc on tanshinones in this paper. The migration distribution of copper and zinc was discussed in Salviae miltiorrhizae bunge. Meanwhile, the safety was also evaluated. The results showed that it promoted Salviae miltiorrhizae bunge growth, when copper concentration did not exceed 0.5mg L-1 and zinc concentration was not greater than 0.75mg L-1, under hydroponic. But it inhibited Salviae miltiorrhizae bunge growth, when copper and zinc concentration was all more than 1.5 mg L-1. Three tanshinones contents increased with the increasing of copper and zinc concentration, and then decreased. At the concentration of copper of 0.5 mg L-1, the danshinones contents reached maximum value. When zinc concentration was 0.75 mg L-1, tanshinone Ⅰ and tanshinone Ⅱ A contents reached maximum value. Zinc concentration was 0.5 mg L-1, and cryptotanshinone contents reached maximum value. Upper part and underground part of copper and zinc contents increased with increasing of copper and zinc concentration. At the same concentration, copper and zinc contents of underground part were higher than that of upper part. Underground part of copper and zinc contents was 2.8- 11.0 times and 2.6- 3.6 times of Upper part in copper and zinc treatment respectively. Salviae miltiorrhizae bunge had strong accumulation ability to copper and zinc. The underground partial of copper and zinc stored up the biggest content which up to 2237.02 mg kg-1 and 2976.35 mg kg-1, respectively.