Evaluación de la eficacia de cuatro especies medicinales en tres pisos altitudinales en Susudel, Ecuador, dentro del proyecto Agro 5.0

Abstract

Ecuador is one of the countries with the greatest plant biodiversity due to the great variety of climates and geographical floors present in the regions, however, little has been documented on the influence of altitude on medicinal species. There are multiple factors that influence distribution, such as temperature in relation to altitude, precipitation, and other factors, since the higher the altitude, the lower the number of medicinal species. The objective of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of four medicinal species at three altitudinal levels in the Susudel parish of the Oña canton. The treatments of medicinal plants were monitored for three months to evaluate the productive cycle and adaptation to the different altitudinal levels. The statistical analysis used was the Kruskall-Wallis test and an ANOVA with post hoc test, which showed significant differences (p< 0.05) in the efficacy of the medicinal species according to the altitudinal levels. In the productive cycle and adaptation, those species located at lower altitudes, such as Cymbopogon citratus and Aloysia citrodora, presented greater leaf size, height, color and fresh weight at 75 DDP, compared to those located at medium and high altitudes; on the other hand, at high altitude, Mentha arvensis presented greater growth and Mentha spicata showed greater leaf size, which showed that these species have specific altitudinal limits for their performance. These findings highlight the importance of considering altitude in the study and use of these medicinal species, as it exerts a strong influence on growth and adaptation.