SEPARATION AND OBSERVATION OF PLANT PIGMENTS IN FERTILIZERS EFFECTED MEDICINAL PLANTS USING PAPER CHROMATOGRAPHY

Plants are one of five big groups of living things. The whole plant biodiversity is the largest source of herbal medicine and among these India have 15 agro climatic zones and 17000- 18000 species of flowering plants of which 6000-7000 are estimated to have medicinal usage. The Indian medicinal plants and their products also account of exports in the range of Rs. 10 billion. It raises a need of studies in medicinal plants as these are involved in maintaining traditional therapies and also they lead to economical support to the country. In this research paper three different varieties of medicinal plants are subjugated to fertilizers treatment for 60 days and later on the plant pigments were separated using paper chromatography and observed under UV-Transilluminator. The Rf values were noted down and compared with their respective control plant values .The presence or absence of the pigments when compared to the control plant significantly indicates the effect of fertilizers on the medicinal plant pigments.