Page 14 - Medicinal Plants_PharmD general

I. Cultivation of medicinal plants

Cultivation of medicinal plants offers wide range of advantages over
the plants obtained from wild sources. These advantages can be
summarized as:

1. Cultivation ensures quality and purity of medicinal plants. Crude
drugs derive their utility from chemical contents in them. If uniformity
is maintained in all operations during the process of cultivation, drugs
of highest quality can be obtained.

2. Collection of crude drugs from cultivated plants gives a better yield
and therapeutic quality. However, it is a skilled operation and
requires some professional excellence, if the collection of crude drugs
for market is done from cultivated plants by skilled and well
experienced personnel, the high yield and therapeutic quality of drugs
can be maintained.

3. Cultivation ensures regular supply of a crude drug. In other words,
cultivation is a method of crop-planning. Planning a crop cultivation
regularizes its supply and as a result the industries depending upon
crude drugs do not face problem of shortage of raw material.

4. The cultivation of medicinal and aromatic plants also leads to
industrialization to a greater extent.

5. Cultivation permits application of modern technological aspects
such as mutation, polyploidy and hybridization.

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