DETERMINATION OF BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE COMPOUNDS AND ITS RADICAL SCAVENGING ACTIVITY IN CANNABIS SATIVA L. MORPHOLOGICAL PARTS

Fibre hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is the non-THC-producing species, one of the oldest crops cultivated all over the world to produce fibre, food products and biomass which is rich in biologically active compounds [1]. There are many sources about hempseed composition and nutritiousness in various databases, but other parts of this plant (stem, leaves and inflorescences) were not investigated as much. Sample list and vegetation stage investigated in this study presented in table 1. Previous studies did not explore differences in all parts of the plant and how the quantity of polyphenolic compounds and flavonoids change in various vegetation stages. Therefore, experiments, which can help to find out how different density of plants (15 plants per square meter and 80 plants per square meter) influences biologically active compounds accumulation in various parts of the plant, were performed. Industrial hemps from sparse area accumulated slightly higher amount of biologically active compounds than the one which grew up under denser conditions.

From previous studies it was known that radical scavenging activity directly correlates with number of hydroxyl groups [3] Consequently, it can be assumed that the more phenolic compounds are found in extract the higher radical scavenging activity should be. In this research, this statement has been proven by using slightly modified Brand-Williams, Cuvelier and Berset method (1995). The extracts capability to bleach DPPH free radical solution was estimated using the following formula: Inhibition (%) = ((A_B-A_E)/A_B)) × 100

where A_B - absorption of blank sample, t = 0min, A_E – absorption of tested extract, t = 30min.

All measurements were carried out using spectrophotometric analysis.