creators_name: Shukla, Shardulya
creators_name: Kumar, Nitish
creators_name: Bhardwaj, Pushpender
creators_name: Pandita, Priyanka
creators_name: Patel, Manoj Kumar
creators_name: Thakur, Mohan Singh
creators_name: Kumar, Raj
creators_name: Rawat, Monisha
creators_name: Saxena, Shweta
type: article
datestamp: 2026-02-07 11:43:26
lastmod: 2026-02-07 11:43:26
metadata_visibility: show
title: Effect of cold arid high-altitude environment on bioactive phytochemical compounds of organically grown Brassicaceae vegetables for nutri-health security in mountainous regions
keywords: Antioxidant; Brassicaceae; Organic farming; Phytochemical compounds; Secondary metabolites
abstract: High-altitude (HA) environment presents immense physiological adversities for humans that have been overcome by supplementing bio-active phytochemicals from functional foods that support and accelerate acclimatization under these extreme environmental conditions. Several agricultural interventions have been investigated to enhance the phytochemical content in vegetables however; these studies have been limited to low-altitude (LA) regions only. In view of an existing knowledge gap, current work is designed to compare the phytochemical compositions of HA and LA-grown Brassicaceae vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, knol-khol, and radish) using organic treatments via farm yard manure (FYM) and Azotobacter. The open field study was conducted as a two-factorial randomized block design. The first factor was treatment (T1-FYM, T2-Azotobacter, T3-FYM + Azotobacter, and T4-control) while the second was locations (HA and LA). Among all these treatments, the application of treatment T3 in HA-grown cabbage showed the highest total phenolic content (TPC; 9.56 μg/mg), total flavonoids content (TFC; 14.48 μg/mg), and antioxidant potential using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH; 85.97%) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP; 30.77 μg/mg) compared to LA grown samples. Reverse Phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) analysis showed that treatment T3 at HA led to significantly high kaempferol (0.92 μg/mg) and sulforaphane (8.94 μg/mg) contents in cabbage whereas, indole-3-carbinol (1.31 μg/mg) was higher in HA grown cauliflower. The present study provides scientific evidence for the enrichment of health-promoting phytochemical compounds in Brassicaceae vegetables grown with T3 treatment specifically at HA.
date: 2024-07
publication: Sci. Rep.
volume: 14
number: 1
publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
pagerange: 15976
citation:   Shukla, Shardulya and Kumar, Nitish and Bhardwaj, Pushpender and Pandita, Priyanka and Patel, Manoj Kumar and Thakur, Mohan Singh and Kumar, Raj and Rawat, Monisha and Saxena, Shweta  (2024) Effect of cold arid high-altitude environment on bioactive phytochemical compounds of organically grown Brassicaceae vegetables for nutri-health security in mountainous regions.  Sci. Rep., 14 (1).  p. 15976.