Factors influencing the production of stilbenes by the knotweed, Reynoutria × bohemica

BACKGROUND: Japanese knotweed, Reynoutria japonica, is known for its high growth rate, even on adverse substrates, and for containing organic substances that are beneficial to human health. Its hybrid, Reynoutria × bohemica, was described in the Czech Republic in 1983 and has been widespread ever since. We examined whether Reynoutria × bohemica as a medicinal plant providing stilbenes and emodin, can be cultivated in spoil bank substrates and hence in the coalmine spoil banks changed into arable fields. We designed a pot experiment and a field experiment to assess the effects of various factors on the growth efficiency of Reynoutria × bohemica on clayish substrates and on the production of stilbenes and emodin in this plant. RESULTS: In the pot experiment, plants were grown on different substrates that varied in organic matter and nutrient content, namely the content of nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen was also introduced into the substrates by melilot, a leguminous plant with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. Melilot served as a donor of mycorrhizal fungi to knotweed, which did not form any mycorrhiza when grown alone. As expected, the production of knotweed biomass was highest on high-nutrient substrates, namely compost. However, the concentration of the organic constituents studied was higher in plants grown on clayish low-nutrient substrates in the presence of melilot. The content of resveratrol including that of its derivatives, resveratrolosid, piceatannol, piceid and astringin, was significantly higher in the presence of melilot on clay, loess and clayCS. Nitrogen supplied to knotweed by melilot was correlated with the ratio of resveratrol to resveratrol glucosides, indicating that knotweed bestowed some of its glucose production upon covering part of the energy demanded for nitrogen fixation by melilot's rhizobia, and that there is an exchange of organic substances between these two plant species. The three-year field experiment confirmed the ability of Reynoutria × bohemica to grow on vast coalmine spoil banks. The production of this species reached 2.6 t of dry mass per hectare. CONCLUSIONS: Relationships between nitrogen, phosphorus, emodin, and belowground knotweed biomass belong to the most interesting results of this study. Compared with melilot absence, its presence increased the number of significant relationships by introducing those of resveratrol and its derivatives, and phosphorus and nitrogen. Knotweed phosphorus was predominantly taken up from the substrate and was negatively correlated with the content of resveratrol and resveratrol derivatives, while knotweed nitrogen was mainly supplied by melilot rhizobia and was positively correlated with the content of resveratrol and resveratrol derivatives.