GC-MS EVALUATION OF THE ESSENTIAL OILS FROM THE NEWLY DEVELOPED CULTIVARS OF SATUREJA MONTANA GROWN IN SOUTHERN UKRAINE

Satureja montana L. is widely used in traditional medicine and cooking. New varieties of this species are created and grown for different purposes. Essential oil (EsO) samples were obtained from the fresh flowering shoots of four new Ukrainian cultivars of S. montana: 'Krymski smaragd', 'Lunata', '697-1', and 'N3-18'. The EsO of cultivars 'Lunata' and 'Krymski smaragd' were studied in two following harvest years (2019 and 2020). The EsO samples were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). More than 60 components were identified in the studied EsO. Carvacrol was the principal component of all the samples (58.3-87.0% as GC-MS relative abundances). p-Cymene was the second predominant component (5.0-8.8%) in the EsO of all the cultivars collected in the year 2020, while cultivars 'Lunata' and 'Krymski smaragd' gathered in 2019 contained it in much fewer amounts (1.7% and 0.5%, respectively). The third main component in the EsO of the most studied varieties was.-terpinene (0.9% to 6.6%). Only cultivar 'N697-1' contained carvacrol methyl ether at a significant level (11.7%). All the tested samples met the requirements of International Standard Organization (ISO) 79284:1991(E), supposing that the qualitative composition of the S. montana EsO should comprise the following main constituents:.-terpinene, p-cymene, linalool, terpinen-4-ol, and carvacrol. It can be concluded that we dealt with the carvacrol chemotypes of S. montana. It was also revealed that growth year influenced the EsO composition of 'Krymski smaragd' and 'Lunata' cultivars. Our results allowed to compare the EsO of the S. montana new cultivars.