Primed by the desert? A preliminary investigation on the effectiveness of citrullus colocynthis seed fixed oils as enhancers of plant vigor performance

Citrullus colocynthis is a medicinal annual plant, belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family, that is widely distributed in the arid areas of the Mediterranean basin. Due to the biological activity that extracts from different organs have shown during decades of scientific investigation, the applications of this species in the most various contexts are continuously increasing. With the aim to evaluate the possible beneficial effect of fixed oil extracts from C. colocynthis seeds in the improvement of plant vigor for both conservation and agricultural purposes, we analysed their effect on model species such as Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench (sorghum), Raphanus sativus (radish) and Lactuca sativa (lettuce). A gas chromatography-flame ionization detection (GC-FID) was performed in order to explore the fatty acids composition of extracts, that resulted to differ from available data. Experiments conducted in vitro and greenhouse conditions revealed that fixed oils of both mature and immature seeds improved the germination and seedling growth of tested species, acting as vigor promoters. In particular, the mature seed extract was able to improve the developmental performance in pot-cultured sorghum plants.